


Saving Time

by SophiaCatherine



Series: Did You Miss Me (While You Were Looking For Yourself Out There) [4]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Limited Smut, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Oculus Leonard Snart, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2020-08-13 05:20:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 72,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20168803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaCatherine/pseuds/SophiaCatherine
Summary: Everything in Leonard Snart's world is as damn near perfect as he could ever have imagined. The Oculus granted him temporal superpowers. He has *two* incredible lovers, with whom he's somehow managed to stumble into domestic bliss. His job on a time ship isn't bad, either. And everyone thinks he's a hero... and even that idea is growing on him.Given his luck, he should have known that would be exactly when everything would fall apart.Len's about to be taken on a tour of all the parts of his life he never wanted Barry or Iris to see. And how he reacts to that could make all the difference.(The sequel toStealing Time.)





	1. Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story so far: When Len returned from the dead, Barry and Iris helped him adjust to some disabling time travel powers. In the process, they all fell for each other. When he returned to the Oculus to get answers, it offered him a choice. He chose to keep his powers - and to move in with Barry and Iris. Time for the happy ending... right?*
> 
> *Don't worry, there will be a happy ending... eventually!
> 
> It’s not completely necessary to have read [Stealing Time](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18030707/chapters/42604646), but it might help. The one-shots are totally optional.
> 
> Song: [God Says Nothing Back](https://youtu.be/ljL3t5f5IDY), The Wallflowers

“Barry,” said a distant voice.

He groaned, clamping his arms tighter around the source - a broad, warm back that Barry never wanted to let go of. 

“Good morning,” purred Iris’s even more distant voice. Barry opened one eye to watch her turn over and kiss Len. The three of them had been together nearly a year, and Barry still wasn’t bored of that sight. He wasn’t sure he ever could be.

Len smirked as she pulled away. “Mmm, very good morning indeed.”

“Hey, sleepy-head,” Iris said, reaching over Len to poke Barry - he groaned again. “You’re gonna be late.”

“Don’t care,” he murmured, and pulled a pillow over his face, just as a deep chuckle from Len made him smile beneath it. Grabbing the pillow, Len shot him a devilish grin, then turned back to Iris.

Barry leaned up on his hand and took in his sleepy wife, in that pink silk nightgown she loved because Barry had given it to her, comparing schedules with his former nemesis, who was lounging against the headboard in his blue striped PJs. Sometimes Barry stood back and wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. But not often - it was all too perfect for that. It was one thing that the universe had finally seen fit to have Barry’s gorgeous, badass best friend fall in love with him, but to let him have a roguishly handsome hero of a lover as well seemed a little unfair on everyone else. Not that Barry was complaining.

“Barry, you’re in the shower first. I’ll start the coffee machine.” Shucking on a pair of fluffy slippers, Iris trudged towards the kitchen.

“Don’t put the toast on till I get there,” Len called helpfully after her, and she waved a dismissive arm behind her. 

Barry put the pillow back over his face.

Len slapped him lightly on the arm. _ “Job, _Barry. Have to get up and be a CSI, remember?”

His heavy eyelids fought the warm temptation of a few more minutes of sleep. “Imma quit,” he mumbled. 

“Probably shouldn’t make that decision at 6.30 a.m.” Len patted him on the shoulder. “Go shower. I’ll make you some toast.”

Sitting up slowly, Barry reached out and ran a hand across Len’s chest. “My hero.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he heard Len grumbling, as he flashed into the bathroom.

He made it to breakfast just as Iris was putting the finishing touches on laying the table. Len was watching from the kitchen island, smirking as Barry kissed her on the forehead and said, “See? You totally have a role at breakfast!” He added “…ow” when she hit him playfully on the head with a fork.

“Now now.” Len put down a big plate full of toast. “Save it for the dangerous metas. You could take down the Hulk with that fork action.”

Barry had half of the toast buttered and in his mouth before Len had sat down. “This is amazing.” He shot Len what he suspected was a very dopey smile. “I love you and you should come home more often.”

“It’s just toast, Barry.” Len was clearly trying not to smile back at him. “And didn’t I ban superpowers at the table? Let the rest of us get some food.”

“Oh, you’ve got plenty.”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

“I’m not,” Barry said through his second piece of toast.

“Boys,” Iris chided, her focus on the toast she was covering in peanut butter. “Can we save the bickering for when we have an actual problem?”

Barry smiled as he watched Len raise his eyebrows at Iris over the coffee mug that Barry had bought for him. One morning, after a panicked realisation that every mug in the apartment belonged to either him or Iris, Barry had pulled up one of those ‘design your own crockery’ websites right at the breakfast table. He’d ordered Len a huge blue mug with a picture of a parka on it and ‘My Time-Traveling Hero’ in bold font underneath. Admittedly, he might have thought more about the message if he hadn’t been rushing out of a terrible sense of guilt - and Iris had been no help, just laughing at his pain. Len pretended to find the mug eyeroll-worthy, but he wouldn’t drink coffee from any other cup.

Len tilted his head at Barry. “Is she tempting fate?”

“Oh, definitely.” Barry leaned over to kiss Iris. “I can’t wait to blame you when we next have a crisis.”

“Mmm. A really terrible crisis.” She grinned. “Maybe with aliens. Lots of them.”

“Meanie,” Barry murmured, smiling against her. As he drew back, he caught sight of his watch. “Oh, crap.” He jumped up, pulling on his shoes. “Len, you’re going to STAR Labs this morning, right?” 

“Yup.” Len swallowed a last bite of toast. “Hold up. I’ll walk out with you.”

Hopping as he wrestled with his infuriating right shoe, Barry made a face at him. “Yeah, that’ll help me be on time.”

“Oh no. However will you make it in by 7.30?” Len circled the table to get to Iris. “If only you were the fastest man alive.”

A year ago, the sarcasm would probably have rankled with Barry. Now it just made him grin - and so did the sight of Len leaning down to kiss Iris. “You’d be surprised,” she said. “Barry could be late if— mmm, come back here.” She grabbed Len’s collar before he could pull away, dragging him back in for another.

This time, Len was clearly savoring the kiss, closing his eyes, a hand on Iris’s cheek. Barry leaned against the table, allowing himself a moment to watch his two favorite people enjoying each other. He couldn’t imagine life getting any better than this. 

Even if Len was _ really _taking his time now. He coughed. “Uh, Len? It’s 7.25.”

“Six seconds, Barry,” he said, opening his eyes and sharing an appreciative, amused look with Iris. “That’s how long it takes you to get to work.”

“And then I have to get _ up _ the stairs and _ into _ my office, all _ without _ using—”

Ever the dramatic asshole, Len sighed loudly. “Fine.” With a hand on Barry’s back, he aimed him at the door. 

“Bye-bye, my heroes,” Iris said with a little smile at Len.

“Cute,” Len called back, taking his time to roll his eyes fondly at her. 

Sighing, Barry pulled him through the door and flashed them both down the stairs, taking exactly five seconds to peck Len on his soft, smirking lips.

“Not even giving me a lift to—” he heard Len start to ask. By the time he’d thought of a suitably witty reply, Barry was already halfway to the CCPD.

* * *

At the Cortex, Len lingered at the door for a minute. Through the glass he could see Caitlin at her desk, her face scrunched up in the direction of her computer screen as though she was puzzling something out.

“So I see it’s you today,” he called out, by way of announcement of his arrival. “Thought there was probably a 50-50 chance I’d get Frost.” He grinned as he headed for the divider between the two rooms. “Would have made therapy a lot more fun.”

Caitlin smiled up at him. “Well, she likes you. Can’t think why. Is that for me?”

He handed her the coffee in his left hand, leaning back against the glass wall and sipping his own. “So. Usual Friday schedule?” 

In eight months, Len had almost never missed a therapy session. He timed his Waverider work schedule so that, one way or the other, he could get back to STAR Labs every other Friday. When he thought about it, he couldn’t honestly say why. Sure, it helped some. But, gazing now at the doctor he’d grown rather fond of, Len wondered if it was partly about not wanting to disappoint the formidable Caitlin Snow. Who, he had to admit, he found a little intimidating - far more than Frost.

The one time he had been forced to skip therapy, he’d ended up in an awkward inter-temporal communicator conversation in which Cait had actually said the words, “Well, Len, I understand that work is important. But neglecting your health is bad for your work, your personal life, and your control of your powers. I want you to think about that before next week, okay?” He had spluttered something about an emergency involving aliens in the 1920s, which was the _ actual truth, _and ended the communication feeling like a small child who had forgotten to do his homework.

Caitlin was frowning at her computer screen again. “There’s something I want you to take a look at first.” 

He stepped around to look at the screen. It was a scan of his brain - not that he’d have known that without the ‘Leonard Snart’ label below - together with a row of unintelligible numbers. He peered at it, patting his pockets for his missing glasses. “What am I looking at, doc?”

Pointing at the list of numbers first, she said, “These are your meta genes.” She tilted her head to peek up at him. “Remember how I theorised that you had them, and they’d been activated by the Oculus?” Len nodded. “Well, I confirmed that you have the genes. Now I’m working on figuring out exactly what they’re doing for you.”

Len turned to lean against the desk, running his fingers along the edge of it. The feel of the wood grain was grounding. He was learning his own tells, he thought ruefully, thanks to all this work in training and therapy. Signs of anxiety he never would have realised were that, before. “Run that by me again?”

Caitlin clearly hadn’t noticed his ramping-up nerves, just steamrolling on. “Every metahuman’s body is differently affected by their meta genes. Ralph’s genes reshape the cellular structure of his collagen, making him stretchy. Barry’s speed up his metabolism so that he can function at extreme speed. Mine allow my body to tolerate and produce cold. I can see all those changes on a range of tests - metabolic, blood count, and so on.” She pointed at the scan of Len’s brain, lit up brighter than the West family home at Christmas. “Your meta genes are mainly affecting your brain, and in ways I’ve never seen before. The closest thing I _ have _ seen is in Barry, when he’s been in the Speed Force.” Grinning, she added, “I got him in an MRI so fast after he first came back from there—”

“What’s your point?” Len had to pause, taking a deep breath, when he realised he’d snapped.

Her eyes alight with the possibilities, Caitlin hadn’t noticed that, either. “Every year we find more metahumans with more kinds of powers than we could ever imagine. The ones whose powers have a psychic component - well, it’s almost always challenging on their mental health. And your powers have some of the strangest neurological effects I’ve seen. Think of the answers your brain could unlock, and how many of those other metahumans we could help.” 

His hands were tapping out an insistent rhythm behind him now, counting out regressive patterns. “You asking if you can study my head, doc?”

_ You’re fucked in the head, boy. No wonder you’re no use to me. _

He cut the string of dim lights that ran through his own timeline, forcing himself back into the present.

And finally Caitlin put the science babble on pause, looking over at him. “Len,” she said, concern filtering into her voice. “Is something wrong?”

(tell her)

“Everything’s fine, doc. So, what - you want a consent form?”

Caitlin frowned, but she pushed a thick file towards him. “Yes, but think about it for a while first, won’t you? It would mean more scans, tests… I want you to be sure you’re happy with what I’m proposing here.”

He swiped the folder like a stranger’s wallet. “Got it. You know what, Caitlin?” he drawled lazily. “I’m not feeling well. I only got back last night - guess maybe I’ve got a touch of time lag. Can we reschedule for tomorrow?”

Her eyes widened and she pushed her chair backwards, very nearly catching him in the leg with the edge of it. “Oh, of course. Go take care of yourself, Len. I wouldn’t want to tire you out.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said, already at the door.

And then he paused. His hand was cold on the door handle. He didn’t turn around. “Caitlin.”

“Yes?” She already sounded distracted by her next task.

“If something ever… changed. With my powers,” he said into the dark, empty Cortex. “Would these brain scans help?”

“Oh, absolutely,” she chattered. “We can establish a baseline for your current brain functions. Then we’ll know how anything new affects you. It could really be very useful.”

“I see.” He glanced over his shoulder to find her smiling encouragingly at him. “Thanks, doc. See you tomorrow.”

He didn’t wait for her answer before striding out of there. When she called out that he’d left his coffee behind, he pretended he was already too far away to hear her.

* * *

It was warm and damp under his back.

Len was lying in a field. The stars were slowly spreading themselves out in a thousand colors across an Oculus-blue sky above.

(there’s a pattern to it)

Frowning, he turned his head to look at the source of the voice… and came face to face with himself.

“Who are you?”

(got bigger things to worry about, wouldn’t you say?)

He glared up at the stars in their ancient, fixed patterns. Never changing.

There was a laugh, musical as Iris’s, though he wasn’t hearing it with his ears.

(they’re going to be angry)

“Who are?”

His other self raised a shaking arm to point off into the distance.

On the other side of the field, Barry and Iris were laying out a picnic on a Flash-red blanket. In perfect dream logic, Len could hear them clearly, even from far away. “Open this, would you, babe?” Iris asked, holding out a bright blue bottle of champagne.

Barry reached out to accept it, his face a picture of joy - and paused. “I can’t help feeling like something’s missing,” he mused.

Iris’s mouth, which Len could also make out at a distance, moved as if she was saying _ Where’s Len? _ But what he heard was, “No. All my heroes are here.”

A chill was enveloping Len, paralyzing him against the ground. 

(you haven’t told them)

Barry was suddenly standing at a STAR Labs whiteboard that had appeared beside them, with Iris still lounging on the blanket. “This used to make _ sense,” _ Barry was saying, as he scribbled unintelligible symbols in red pen on the board. “Now I don’t know what it adds up to.”

“Oh!” Iris said, with her hand in the air. “I know what it is.” They both turned to look at Len, with eyes that could see into his wretched, rotten soul. “It’s him.”

He felt the bottom drop out of the ground beneath him. He was drowning in stars.

Barry shook his head sadly, pointing at the board. “You’re unbalancing my equations, Len.”

“No,” Len murmured. He couldn’t move. “Barry. I’m not—”

Whatever he was going to say, he was interrupted by a roar in the distance. A seven-foot tall Lewis Snart was storming across the field, the ground shuddering beneath him with every stomp. “You idiots!” he yelled at Barry and Iris, who just smiled at him, even as he sent the whiteboard crashing to the ground with a single swipe.

Len tried to call out to them run - but his throat felt like a vicious hand was crushing it.

“They’ve got no idea, have they, son?” The giant wheezed a laugh that sent another shiver through Len’s frozen body.

(no idea)

Beside him, his other self began to laugh along with his father.

Then Barry joined in, his face twisting, his mouth leering open in loud mockery.

And then Iris.

Len woke shivering in the dark, still feeling the chill of the damp grass, even in his bed with Iris on one side of him and Barry on the other.

“Len?” Barry murmured, wriggling in closer to his side. “You’re freezing.”

“I’m fine,” he managed to reply between harsh, rapid breaths. “Go back to sleep.”

The damn speedster would never take Len’s word for it that he didn’t need help. Barry wrapped his arms around him, rubbing his shoulder. “It’s okay,” he murmured. “It’s going to be okay.”

It should have grated. Would have done, back when Len had been the person he… used to be. But now, much too tired to fight, Len just leaned back into him, listening to his familiar, rapid heartbeat, letting Barry's safe warmth seep through him. Letting himself be comforted like a whimpering child - from whatever weird shit that was.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t going to be okay at all.

  
_Seems like the world's gone underground_  
_ Where no gods or heroes dare to go down _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Thette for fantastic beta reading and character/plot discussion that helped me get out of some stuck moments in upcoming chapters...
> 
> Throughout this story, I’ll be warning for smut and other potentially triggering things, with ‘start and end’ points so that you can skip them if you want.


	2. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry worries about Len. He might be right to...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warnings for smut, and a shooting (not of a major character, not graphically described). For more detailed warnings and where to skip parts, see end notes.

The next couple of weeks were busy for Iris, but she didn’t really mind. In these early days of establishing the Citizen as a real media outlet, she didn’t want to miss out on any of the fun and challenge of having her own start-up. But that meant days at a time when she only saw the sun through the downtown office window. For ten nights, as soon as she got home, she crossed a square off the kitchen calendar, while Barry rested his head on her shoulder. ‘LEN HOME’ was written in a neat hand across the Saturday and Sunday squares, with a little smirking face doodled beside it.

It wasn’t as though she didn’t appreciate the time she got to spend with Barry, just the two of them. Even with her long hours, they managed to fit in dinner and cuddles and TV nights. But there was always something missing until Leonard joined them again.

Thursday night finally arrived, and Iris managed to crawl home at an _almost_ reasonable hour. She collapsed onto the big bed, just letting her eyes close for a minute or two. She must have looked a sight when Barry came in, with her hair hanging limp around her and a smear of mascara across her pillow, but he stopped in the doorway and smiled as though she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

Seriously, being married to Barry Allen was doing fantastic things for her self-esteem.

She grinned when an insistent pair of arms wrapped around her and a firm kiss pressed her back into her pillow. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

His smile was bright as lightning. “I flashed,” he said, the same pride in his voice as on the first day he’d appeared to her as the Flash.

“I figured. Did Len say if he’ll be home in time for dinner?”

“Uh, I think so?” Barry rolled away. His brow was furrowing, a change of mood clouding his face.

“Well, don’t forget to take the pie out of the oven. If it’s crispy, he’ll think _I _forgot about it.” 

When she got no reply, Iris glanced over at him, frowning at the timbre of his silence. She’d known Barry a long time, and loved him almost as long. She knew his contented silence, his thoughtful hush and his sulky quiet. And, from her vivid, sad memories of their childhood, she knew what his silence sounded like when he was afraid. 

“Iris.” 

“Hmm?”

His green eyes were fixed on the ceiling, a distant look in them. “He had a nightmare the other night.”

“He has those, Barry,” she said gently. She rolled towards him so she could slide in against his side, rubbing his shoulder when he wrapped an arm around her. “You wouldn’t like it if I panicked every time you had one.”

“I guess so. But... there’s other weird stuff, too. His mood is all over the place, recently. Do you think something’s wrong?”

This wasn’t just Barry’s usual anxiety, free-floating and always looking for a target. He’d been thinking about this. “What other weird stuff?”

He shrugged. “I’ve just got this feeling.” He ran the back of his hand softly across her cheek. “Caitlin mentioned he missed therapy last week, too.”

“Barry. You know that’s between them. Client-doctor privilege.” He nodded, and she ruffled his hair. “Let me see what I can get out of him, yeah?”

She didn’t get to hear what Barry thought of that idea. A key was rattling in the door, and the sound still made her smile. He’d spent so many months breaking in. A few more just ringing the doorbell, guarding his heart too hard to let himself think of the West-Allen apartment as his own. But Leonard Snart was finally using his own front door key to their shared home.

“In here,” she called out.

“Iris, your beauty is incomparable,” Leonard said before he’d even stepped in from the hallway. 

Okay, if one guy doing this was good for her self-esteem, _ two _ were going to inflate her ego like an out-of-control balloon. She scoffed. “Oh please - you can’t see me and I’m a mess.”

“Doesn’t make a shred of difference,” he said, jumping up onto the bed next to her with such a welcome smile that she forgot all her worries, and all of Barry’s, and let him sweep her up in a hug. “Hi. Missed you,” he said in that gorgeous, roguish drawl of his.

On the other side of the bed, Barry was watching them with an impish grin of his own, arms folded in mock offence. “Did you miss me?” 

Len’s eyes softened as he let go of Iris and took Barry in. “Damn right I did,” he said, with more feeling than she ever thought she’d hear from him, and he shuffled past her and curled his arms around Barry.

After a minute, when it became clear that Leonard’s wandering hands were stealing Barry’s attention, she coughed. “Barry. Would you like me to finish dinner? You seem busy.”

“Mmf—No… I’m going…” He pulled reluctantly away from Leonard’s rather passionate embrace, removing Len’s hands from his butt, and wriggled out of bed. But he found time to turn back and grin at them both before he flashed out.

Leonard chuckled, his eyes roaming down Iris’s body. “I mean it. You’re beautiful.”

She rolled her eyes. “Flattery will— mmm.” She didn’t protest his interruption - the kiss was too good. His tongue teased at her lips, always a flashing neon sign that he wanted to do more than just kiss. “Dinner’s nearly ready, Leonard,” she said, laughing. 

His chuckle rumbled against her. “We can put it in the microwave later. I really missed you.”

It was too easy for his clever hands to persuade her, as they reached effortlessly back to unbutton her dress with elegant skill learned from years of pickpocketing and safe-breaking.

And then a smaller, warmer pair of hands were on her back, pulling her dress off and sliding down to settle on the curve of her thigh, stroking softly while Leonard kept kissing her.

No one had warned Iris about how good the sex would be for her, when there were three of them, but she wasn’t complaining.

“God, Barry,” she whined, as his tongue joined his hands, slowly teasing up her thighs towards her folds, skirting them and pulling away, again and again. “Come _ on, _Barry…”

Leonard’s smirk was unfairly sexy. “Patience. He’s an artist,” he murmured in her ear, making her giggle. 

And then everything was white-hot bliss for a while, with Barry sucking her off while Leonard nibbled at her nipples and stroked her thighs, and she couldn’t have told you whose name she was calling out when she came, but they both looked damn happy about it.

Iris sighed into the quiet moment afterwards, stroking Leonard’s face as she smiled at Barry. A year ago, she could never have imagined a third person slotting into their relationship like he was made to fit there. She had been happy with Barry; she didn’t expect anything to shake that up. But then Leonard stumbled out of the dark and into their lives. He hadn’t just added to her relationship with Barry. He had transformed it into something new - a life that belonged to all three of them.

And the hot sex didn’t hurt, she thought, rolling over as Leonard turned his attention to Barry. She grinned at Leonard’s smirk at her. He knew just how much she loved watching them together. It had been strange at first, watching her husband with another man - but very quickly, Leonard just… fit. 

He was already wrestling Barry a bit to be on top, always a little rougher with him than with Iris. That healing factor meant Barry could take it - and his eager eyes said he loved it. He was playing along, strong enough to roll Leonard over and straddle him if he wanted to, but letting him Leonard win. With a delighted smirk, Len finally pulled himself on top, throwing a leg over Barry and pushing his arms down against the bed. “Are you going to be a good boy and not move, or do I need to tie you up?” he purred, while Barry squirmed under a playful grin - and oh God, Iris was going to want to go again soon if they kept this up.

“I’ll be good,” Barry murmured back.

Iris’s right hand drifted almost unconsciously to her pussy.

Leonard noticed, raising amused eyebrows at her. “Want to help hold him down, Iris, or are you busy?”

Barry turned his head to shoot her an adorable grin.

“Sure you’re good with this?” Len was asking him, his voice dropping out of his drawl for a moment. 

“Yes,” he hissed, squirming again, his dark eyes already needy. “Get on with it, Len.”

Len’s eyes got just a little bit wider. “Brat.” 

Iris laughed. She scrambled up towards the headboard, pinning Barry’s hands behind his head. He gave her the briefest of delighted smiles, then raised his eyebrows at Len, daring him to do something.

With another well-timed smirk at Iris, Leonard caught Barry’s eye and licked his lips, his playful mask slipping. For a moment, Iris could see just how crazy he was about Barry, and it took her breath away. Then the smirk was back, and he smoothed his hand slowly across Barry’s body, moving down to palm his cock. 

“So villainous,” Barry whispered. “I love it.”

Len went still, so briefly that only Barry or Iris could have noticed - and Barry was a little distracted. But he shrugged one shoulder quickly enough, a slightly subdued smirk back on his face. “Yeah, you do.”

Her time-traveling lover was a little quieter than usual after that, focusing on her other hero, wrenching down his pants and licking his tip, then taking Barry’s whole length into his mouth with the practiced cockiness of someone who knew he was damn good at what he was doing.

_He’s just focused,_ Iris told herself, choosing to ignore Barry’s earlier worries. And soon enough she was distracted by Len’s attentive gaze on Barry. When Barry’s eyes began to drift closed, Len patted his thigh and softly ordered, “Uh-uh. Eyes on me, Scarlet.” He obeyed at once, matching Len’s look of complete adoration. It sent a shiver through Iris, and her left hand roamed back downwards. Len grinned in approval before he turned his full attention back to Barry’s cock.

As Barry’s moans rose towards their peak, Len pulled away, beckoning to Iris. She crawled to Barry’s side, dry-mouthed, and Len slid a gentle but firm finger inside her, adding another, making her gasp. Her head dropped down to the pillow behind her, her own fingers finding her clit, adding a touch of her own to that gorgeous feeling of Leonard moving inside her, as she watched him finishing Barry off with his other hand. Len knew them both well enough to time everything to the second. Iris came in time with her husband, Barry calling out something unintelligible, Iris just sighing with the quiet, warm wave that ran through her.

Len finished himself off just a few seconds after them, while Iris leaned over to kiss him, sloppy and soft in the afterglow. He grabbed Barry for his own long, slow kiss, his hand firm on the back of Barry’s head. Then he turned back to Iris with a smug grin. He probably deserved his self-satisfied moment. “Happy, baby?”

She just smiled in answer. She ran her hand across his head, enjoying the feel of his rough, short hair under her fingers. This was too good for words, and she never wanted it to end. 

But, too soon, it had to. Barry blinked, awareness returning to his eyes slowly, for a speedster. “Dinner time,” he declared.

There was a groan from Len’s side of the bed. “Can’t believe you like food more than sex.”

“It’s a close one,” Barry admitted, leaning over him for another quick peck on the lips.

He shook his head sadly at Iris. “And so pretty, too. You’d think he’d be more invested.”

The space beside Iris on the bed was suddenly cold. From the kitchen Barry called out, “It’s in in the microwave! Two minutes.”

Iris flopped back onto the bed, laughing at the expression on Len’s face until she couldn’t breathe.

* * *

It was early the next day, Saturday morning, when Barry was called out to the scene of a shooting. A thin line of gray light was just starting to filter through the gap under the blinds. He slid out of bed quietly, mindful of Iris’s regular breathing beside him. 

As he turned back at the door, he half-noticed the empty space on Len’s side of the bed, too sleepy for it to register properly.

At 11am, as he was being given the all-clear to leave for the rest of the weekend, his phone buzzed. 

_ Coffee. CC J. _

Barry raised an eyebrow at the message. “Good morning to you too, Len.” Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he headed down the street towards Jitters.

Len was hunched over a latte in the corner, wearing that overcast expression that always heralded a coming storm. If Barry hadn’t been so tired, he might even have paid enough attention to that.

“What happened to you this morning?” Barry asked, sitting down across the little table from Len.

Len gave him a slightly irritated tilt of his head. “What do you think?” 

Barry paused with his coffee cup at his lips. Len was taking fewer unplanned time-jumping trips than ever, but they still happened. “You okay?” 

“Peachy.” There was a very Snart shrug. “Nothing monumental happened,” he drawled. “Don’t worry.”

Actually, Barry had mostly been ruminating about the new crime lab director and whether he was making a good impression on her. He turned his attention to his partner, watching him over the rim of his mug. Other than looking like he was having a bit of a crappy day, Len seemed okay. He was lounging in his chair, one arm hiked over the back, his eyes roaming the coffee shop.

Len looked over at him, sighing. “What are you staring at, Barry?”

He shook his head. “Nothing…” But the worry he’d told Iris about was curling uncomfortably in Barry’s insides again. “Did you have a bad dream the other night?”

That seemed to catch Len off guard, a bit of tension slumping out of his shoulders. “You know I don’t sleep well sometimes,” he said softly, the snap gone from his voice. “I said, don’t worry, hmm?”

Nodding, Barry smiled. “So. Tell me about where you went this morning?”

Len’s eyes clouded, and he was somewhere else for the briefest of moments. Then he was back, with another of his signature shrugs. “Popped over to the 1970s in the early hours. It was dull. Tell me about work.”

As Barry began to whine about being called into work on a Saturday, Iris’s voice interrupted him. “I see you two got started without me.” She slumped into a chair beside Barry. “Oh God. So tired. Why am I working on the weekend?”

“It’s like no one warned you that news is on a 24-7 cycle,” Len quipped. 

She reached over to slap Len’s knee and he grinned at her. “Shut up, you.” She leaned back and closed her eyes, waving at the two of them. “I’m just gonna— yeah. You carry on without me.”

Barry snorted and picked up his story.

A second later, Iris opened one eye. “Oh, Leonard, I almost forgot. I stopped by the apartment on the way over. You left your communicator there. Mick called - he wants you to call him back.”

Barry didn’t miss how Len stiffened beside him. “Everything okay with you two?”

Through a clenched jaw, Len took a sip of his coffee before he answered. “Fine. There’s just stuff I need to sort out. Work schedules… you know.”

Barry put down his coffee.

Len wasn’t looking at either of them.

Barry could feel all his energy draining away as he tried to suppress the jolt of frustration. Maybe one bad morning didn’t add up to anything. Maybe it really was just a difficult time travel trip that Len didn’t want to talk about. But his reluctance to share anything with them, _ still, _was giving Barry a headache. Communicating with Len was always a damn tightrope act, even after all this time together. 

And, yeah, Barry knew he should be putting the work into his relationship, and making the compromises his partners needed, and all that jazz. But some days, especially when he’d had to get up at 5 on a Saturday morning, he was just too tired for this shit. 

He sighed, trying not to glare. “Something you want to tell us, Len?”

Silence.

Barry glanced over at Iris in a quiet plea for help.

“Leonard,” she said gently - how did she _ do _ that? She was always so much more patient with him than Barry ever managed to be. “If you want to talk about it, we’re right here.”

Len met her eyes for a moment, and then his gaze slid to the floor. “I _ said, _it’s nothing. Really, I mean it, guys.”

She gave Len a little smile when he finally looked back up. “Well. Even if it’s only the stress of the hero life—”

No one could fail to notice that the h-word sometimes led to some odd reactions from Len. Barry had never seen him have a reaction like _ this _ to the word before.

He stood up so hard that his chair squeaked against the floor, drawing glances from nearby coffee-drinkers, and began to walk away.

“Len, wait,” Barry started.

Len turned back around. There was something very dark behind his eyes. His lips were pressed together in a tight, vicious snarl that reminded Barry of his early encounters with Captain Cold. 

Ignoring Barry, he raised his eyes to meet Iris’s again. “Don’t call me that,” he said, in a strangled tone. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

And then he was gone, striding towards the door.

Barry started to get up. “I should go after him.”

Iris put her hand on his knee. Her face was tight. “Leave him. I don’t—” She shook her head. “Just leave him.”

“I’m sick of this, Iris!” Barry didn’t realise he was yelling until it was too late, and there was yet more hurt in Iris’s eyes that she didn’t deserve. “Sorry.” He shrank back down into his chair. “I’m sorry.”

She shrugged, but there was something cold in her eyes. “Usual routine, Barry. He’ll come to us when he wants to.”

Barry glanced towards the door. “That wasn’t his usual shit, though.” He reached out and squeezed her hand. “Something’s wrong.”

“I know,” she murmured, squeezing back. “But there’s nothing we can do until he wants to talk.”

* * *

(not now please not now)

Len could feel the time shift begin to hit before he made it through the door of Jitters. He stumbled out into the alley, whispering an almost-silent prayer that he wouldn’t disappear where Iris or Barry could see him.

Then there was the horribly familiar feeling that he was being torn apart, dragged through an opening tear in the universe— 

He blinked the blue light from his eyes, and looked around to find himself in the same alley. But now it was dark, the streets all but deserted. Stepping out onto Main Street, he spotted four or five landmarks that he faintly recognised, familiar but still strange, like an out-of-focus photograph of home. 

He was back in his own timeline, for the fifth fucking time that month. 

It was 1989, and he knew exactly why he was there.

Len ducked back into the alley as his younger self passed, flanked by Mick, his head plumed with a burst of red hair - the sight nearly made Len snicker. And then he stepped back onto the street to watch them heading for the Motorcar diner. An ache of nostalgia stirred in him at the sight of the place where his grandfather had taken him for milkshakes. Where, night after night while he was growing up, he had sat curled up in a dark booth at the back, making a single burger last for hours, until it was late enough that Lewis would be passed out when he snuck back in. Where he had learnt his trade, listening to police radios and watching the cops come and go, counting the minutes and learning their patterns.

Where he had killed a man, back when he was still practically a kid.

(don’t go there)

But he couldn’t help it. The pull was a dark magnet. He could never look away.

He watched until Mick and his younger self reached the diner. He waited for Mick to pull a crowbar out of his bag, smashing in the glass door. 

And then he began to count.

At 15 seconds, he started walking.

At 28 seconds, he reached the door.

At 33 seconds, he had hiked himself up onto the low roof, swinging his head down to a high window in the rafters. Peering down to watch himself raising a gun with shaking hands.

“Come on, kid,” pleaded the guy on the other end of the barrel. At the time, Len had thought the Family flunky was so much older and scarier than him, but now he could see that he was maybe 21 - not much older than the Len who was holding the gun. “Snart. We can talk about this.”

“Sorry, Billy,” young Len said, in a stronger drawl than Len remembered having at that age. “The Santinis want the score settled. And, honestly? Better you than me.”

Below him, he heard Mick bolt the front door.

Billy let out a near-hysterical, high-pitched laugh. “Bet Lewis sent you to do the dirty work, like the snake he is.” Len couldn’t see his younger self’s face, but he had to be scowling. “I can make you a better offer. C’mon, Snart. You gonna let your old man just push you around?”

Over the gunshot, Len didn’t hear what his younger self replied, and he didn’t remember. 

He swung himself back onto the flat of the roof, listening for two running sets of footsteps echoing away through the back alley. 

He stayed there, his arms wrapped around himself, for a long time afterwards.

He stayed there until a bright light, and a noise like the universe ripping itself apart, pulled him away again. To his own living room, dark and silent. Because apparently the universe had a fucked-up sense of humor, taking him back to the one place he didn’t want to bring that memory. Or any memories of his past that didn’t belong here, with Barry and Iris, who were too light and loving and _ good _ for him.

“You’re shaking,” Iris said from the door to the hallway, rushing over to him in her robe.

He leaned gratefully against her, drinking in the silence and the scent of her perfume. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, even if he didn’t know where the urge to apologize had come from. 

She shook her head against his chest. “Len, whatever it is, you can talk to us. Don’t you know that by now?”

But he couldn’t. The fucking words wouldn’t fucking come. 

She pulled away to look sadly up at him, reaching up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek.

Then she went back to bed and Barry, leaving him alone in the dark.

_  
God bless the void of my daydreams  
_ _ Head back in the snow making angel wings _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you’re skipping parts, here are the start and end points:
> 
> Smut scene - begins at: “His chuckle rumbled against her. “We can put it in the microwave later.’” Ends at: “But, too soon, it had to. Barry blinked...” You won’t miss any plot if you skip it, except that Iris is a bit concerned about Len.
> 
> Shooting scene - begins at: “And then he began to count. At 15 seconds, he started walking.” Ends at: “He stayed there, his arms wrapped around himself...” Summary: a younger Len (aged about 17) kills a man for the Santinis - it’s implied that it’s on Lewis’s orders.
> 
> This chapter isn’t fully beta read, because my lovely beta reader Thette is away this week - but thanks to her for looking at snippets for me, and thanks also to Aurelia for the same! <3


	3. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things quickly reach breaking point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of chapter content warnings. References to past dub con/non con, not described in detail. Also, towards the end, someone hits a wall in frustration. See end notes for where to skip both small sections.

Iris West-Allen was tired. 

“His cold gun hasn’t been used in three days, Iris.”

From her seat at the computer, she bit down on an impatient reply - though it wasn’t really Barry she was losing patience with - and just nodded. “Yes. You said.”

She’d been watching him pace around STAR Labs for fifteen minutes now. And honestly, she was starting to feel… _ done. _There was something coiling in her chest, a tightness that she’d been ignoring for too long.

“Babe.” She got up, joining Barry on the other side of the console, slipping a hand around his waist. “There’s nothing we can do.”

Barry ran a hand through his hair and stared at nothing. “There has to be. He’s in trouble, Iris. I just _ know _ he is.”

He just looked so sad. The tightness in her chest constricted a little more. Like it did every time Leonard refused to talk to them, and she had to see more hurt on Barry’s face, when he didn’t deserve to feel like that. She loved Len, and he knew that - had to, by now. But this shit was unfair on both her and Barry. 

_ Leonard’s trying, too, _ she told herself - a hollow echo in her head.

But only one of her partners was here now. She turned her attention fully to him, keeping her voice as reassuring as she could. “Barry, you must be used to his disappearances by now. He’s been gone longer before.”

“Not with no contact,” he muttered, leaning back against the console and letting out a long, slow breath. “And three days could mean _ anything, _ if he’s gone traveling in time.” 

“Right…” There was something to that. She pulled away to look at Barry. “These days, he can usually come back to any moment in time that he wants to, right?”

“Usually, yeah.” That dark cloud crossed his face again. “If something hasn’t gone wrong.”

But Iris shook her head, pulling at a thread in her mind. It was that feeling she got when she was beginning to root out a story. She followed the trail - it was a good distraction from everything else. “If he wants to.” She put a hand on Barry’s shoulder, feeling him tense under her touch. “Maybe it’s not that something’s keeping him from getting back. What if he doesn’t want to come home?”

She didn’t like how Barry stared at her, eyes suddenly wide and afraid. “Why wouldn’t he?”

Iris kissed him on the cheek, resting against the side of his face a minute, not knowing what to say. Then she pulled away, drumming a thoughtful hand against her hip. “Last time either of us saw him was the coffee shop, right? When he was acting super weird.”

“He was acting weird before that,” Barry murmured. “The nightmares, the mood swings… I thought it was just him being him, but now I feel like _ something _was ramping up.” His eyes had gone distant again. “How did I miss that?”

The image of Leonard getting up from his chair, that morning in the coffee shop, had left something buzzing in her head. “Hero...”

Barry raised an eyebrow. “It’s not like he’s ever been fond of that word.”

“I never saw him take it that personally before, though.” Letting out a hard sigh, she leaned back into Barry, and he put a soft arm around her. “Do you ever get tired of this?” she whispered.

“Sometimes,” he admitted, a returned whisper into her hair. “But we said we’d be there for him - whatever happened, whenever he needed us. I’m not about to stop now.”

The pressure in her chest coiled a little bit tighter. “We said we’d be there for him _if_ he was honest with us. If he shared things with us.” She shook her head. “But, yet again, we've got no idea what’s going on with him. Where is he, Barry? Whatever’s happening, he should know he can always come home. That we’ll stand by him, no matter what. But if he doesn’t…”

Barry tilted his head back to give her a searching look. “You really think he’s choosing not to come back?” She didn’t answer, and he ran a hand down his face. “God, I don’t know what to do. I’m all out of ideas.”

Without thinking - because if she thought about it, she might change her mind - Iris glanced in the direction of the time vault. “I want to talk to Mick.”

“Huh?”

She was already turning towards the door. “He called the other day, remember? It was the other thing that Leonard reacted weirdly to. Just following the clues. Come on.”

“Clues,” Barry murmured behind her. As he caught up, he was clearly having trouble keeping a smile off his face. There he was, her sunshine - and everything was right with the world again, as he caught up and followed her out of the Cortex. “All right, ace reporter. Your move.”

* * *

Len was cowering in the garden of his childhood home like a fucking coward.

He told himself it was because he’d be tempted to shoot his old man if he went into the house. 

It was mostly a lie.

He vividly remembered the argument, even if he couldn’t hear all of it through the distant raised voices. Breathing so hard that his chest hurt, he was trying not to listen. But just like last time, he couldn’t make himself do anything but follow, down, down, and let Time drag him into hell.

“...gonna go to that hotel and you’re gonna seduce that woman, and if she’s not into it you’re gonna _ persuade _ her she is, or so fucking help me God…”

He couldn’t listen to the rest of it. Dragging himself up, he strode out of the garden with his shaking hands shoved in his pockets. 

When his father was finished with him, Len had done exactly what he wanted. 

And Len could make all the excuses he wanted to. _ I didn’t have a choice. I had to keep his attention off Lisa. He could have killed me. _They were just excuses. 

They were _ always _ excuses. It had been his decision; his actions, not Lewis’s.

His first seduction scam, and he’d made Lewis Snart proud.

He’d heard the girl throwing up as he fled with her money and jewelry. He couldn’t remember her name, but he remembered that.

She was rich, and that was all he’d let himself care about. She wasn’t a person to Lewis, so why would Len have let himself think of her that way?

When he came back to himself, he was sitting on a bench in the park near his house. He liked this bench. He’d slept on it, more than one night, growing up. It was a breathing space.

All he could do right now was sit there, and breathe.

He wanted to go home. 

The irony hit him, that he _ was _ home, and he almost laughed out loud.

The timing was incredible. He had a real home, now, for the first time in his fuck-up of a life - and he couldn't go back there.

* * *

On the other side of the screen, Mick growled, “I’m gonna kill him.”

Iris felt her eyebrows go up. “Mick, hon, we’re on a bit of a time crunch here. Sorry, no pun intended - Len hasn’t had _ that _ much of an effect on me.”

Standing beside her at the time vault screen, Barry was so quiet it was making her nervous.

Mick sighed. She could see him playing with his gloves - tugging at their edges at his wrists, taking them off and pulling them back on. “He ain’t talked to you.”

Iris shook her head, biting down on a sharp reply. It wasn’t Mick’s fault that Leonard was playing his old, secretive game again.

He frowned at her, hard, like he was considering something. If she and Barry could be trusted, maybe. If he should trust them - or if Len should. 

“Things started to change.” he said, shrugging. “Couple of months ago. Snart and me figured out the places he was traveling to were different. They weren’t random anymore.”

Iris could hear Barry holding his breath. “How do you mean?”

“He was getting taken to places where…” Mick shrugged again. “He thought was meant to do things. Help people. Said it had been a bit like that from the beginning, but not every trip, not by a long shot. But then…”

“Then it _ was _ every trip.” Iris finished. She was trying to work out why she didn’t like that. Why Leonard would hate it.

He just stared back at her. “Yeah.”

“And then something else changed,” she guessed, because even a nudge from the universe towards heroism couldn’t explain the way Leonard had been acting.

“He started going to his own past,” Mick said, tone matter-of-fact.

Iris froze. 

Beside her, Barry sucked in a breath. “You’re kidding,” he muttered.

Mick raised unimpressed eyebrows at him. “I wouldn’t joke about this, Red. It’s fucking him up.”

The horror was starting to hit her. Iris cut back in before Barry could answer. “Has he been lost in his own timeline before?”

“Lost?” He scowled at her. “What d’you mean?”

“He hasn’t been back for three days. First he arranges to take the week off work to be with us, and now he’s just gone, without a word. Even for him, that’s… unusual.”

He shook his head slowly. His tight expression was worried, and once again Iris was reminded how much Mick loved his best friend - even if they both had some ways of showing it that were totally foreign to her. “You could talk to Gideon,” he was suggesting. “Ours or yours. But I dunno.” He shot her an apologetic look. “I didn’t know he hadn’t told you,” he said, as if he really was sorry.

She tried to smile. “Not your fault.”

Barry’s earlier words - _ how could I have missed this? _\- were ringing in her head like an alarm.

Never one for small talk, Mick ended the call a moment later. “God,” Iris breathed. 

She stared at the blank screen for a minute, till Barry broke into her numb paralysis, tapping her on the shoulder. “I have an idea.” 

* * *

Watching Leonard in a time bubble that he’d wrapped around himself was always a bit spooky. Until Barry ruptured the edges of it, all he saw was Len frozen in time.

And right now he was frozen in time on the back lawn of 1629 Handley Avenue, crouching on the ground with a blank, hopeless stare fixed on his face. From Barry’s perspective, it would be fixed there forever, unless he did something. 

For a moment, Barry just looked at him, trying to ignore whatever was suddenly boiling in his gut. Something in him wanted to turn around and speed away, before he could find out if Len had got lost, or decided not to come home. Instead, he took a deep breath and sped in, punching through the shimmering edge of the bubble.

Len looked up at him with - not surprise, exactly. A moment of confusion, and then resignation. “How did you find me?” His voice was hoarse.

“Speed Force. I asked it for a favor.” Barry tried to look like he was leaning casually against the broken swing set Len was crouched under. It creaked under his weight, threatening sharp edges too close to his arms. “Did you know it thinks of the Oculus as a sort of distant relative?”

Len didn’t react. Intent eyes focused on the house, as if he couldn’t look away.

Barry sat down on the patchy grass. He glanced up at the deathly-still house, looming in evening shadow above them. The house was a mess, with an overgrown yard and a nailed-up front door. Barry looked back at Len’s dead eyes, deciding against asking what year this was.

He looked like he’d given up.

“We were worried.”

Len was silent.

Barry blew out a breath. “For God’s sake, Len, would you _ please _ talk to me? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“Very,” Len said. Coolly, as though it were just a fact.

Barry rubbed a hand down his face. “We - me and Iris - we can’t keep doing this. _ You _ can’t keep doing—”

“I’m not just freaking out, Barry,” Len interrupted, and Barry watched his resistance crumble. “I'm in trouble.” Finally he met Barry’s eyes, fear set deep and dark in his own. 

It wasn't quite a plea for help, but it still hurt to hear from Len. It was honest, at least. “What’s happening?” he pushed, as gently as he could under the circumstances.

The look that crossed Len’s face was terrifying. “Barry. Please don’t make me…” He trailed off, pinching his lips together.

Barry had seen Len go through a lot, over the past year. He’d seen him lost, vulnerable, shaken. Never, at least not since they got together, had he seen him look this _ pissed. _ He placed an open hand on the ground next to Len. “Whatever it is, we can deal with it together.”

A high-pitched laugh, on the verge of hysteria, broke from Len’s lips. He shook his head at the dark, starless sky. “Not this, we can’t.”

“Len. _ Please.” _

A long, tense silence later, Len’s hand found Barry’s, closing tight and desperate around it. 

The scene shimmered and shifted. Night gave way to the painful glare of sharp sunlight. The tumbledown wreck of a house was suddenly restored to one piece, more or less. Peeling paint and a small boarded-up window revealed the cracks in the facade of suburban bliss, but it was mostly holding itself together.

“Shit,” Len snapped. “I lost the bubble…” He got up, tugging on Barry’s hand and pulling him behind a low line of shrubs.

They were out of sight just in time for the green front door to fly open. A young man, maybe 17 years old, slammed the door behind him. He had a duffle bag slung over his shoulder, a trail of bruises down one side of his face, and he was walking with a purpose that looked like all he had left in the world.

Behind him, the door opened again. The boy didn’t look back at the little girl with the tear-streaked face who was calling his name. 

“Please, Lenny,” she sobbed. “Don’t go.”

The boy stopped walking. “I told you, Lise. I can’t do this anymore.” He glanced briefly behind him, but didn’t meet her eyes. “I’ll call you.”

The girl straightened up, scrubbing tears away with a savage hand. “Don’t bother!” she screamed. “I don’t need you! Don’t come back!” She pulled the door shut with a half-hearted bang. “Don’t _ ever _ come back!” her muffled voice finished from behind the door.

The boy closed his eyes, just for a moment. And then he set his face like ice, tugged his bag a little further up his shoulder, and walked away.

There was an eerie laugh on Barry’s left. 

Barry managed, at last, to look away from the scene to Len. He was gray-faced, shaking his head at the blazing sky. “Fine,” he hissed. “I give up. I don’t know who or what’s doing this, but I get the fucking message, okay?” He stood up, apparently no longer concerned about being seen or heard. “I fucking get it!” he screamed.

Scrambling to get up, Barry laid a hand on Len’s arm. “Come on,” he whispered. 

“Where?” Len snarled.

Barry met his gaze, trying desperately not to let it go. “Home,” he said, in the most insistent voice he could manage. “We need to talk, and there’s another person we should be having this conversation with.”

Len’s eyes slid down to the ragged lawn. “I can’t go home.”

“Yes, you can,” Barry murmured. He felt like he was being torn in two. He wasn’t really in any mood to try and persuade Len, if he was going to kick back harder than this. Not even after the scene he’d just watched. But he found himself squeezing Len’s shoulder. When Len didn’t move, he added, “What does Iris say about home?”

Len’s lips twitched with the smallest of smiles. “It’s where you hang your hangover?”

Barry rolled his eyes. “The _ other _ thing she says about home.”

Len glanced up at the house in front of him with a sneer. Then he looked at Barry, eyes troubled. “It’s where we can be who we are and not be questioned for it,” he said, a little mechanically, like he still didn’t believe it. 

Barry ignored another stab of hurt.

But at last Len nodded. “You’re right,” he said, not explaining what he meant. He peeled off his right glove, grabbed Barry’s hand, skin to skin… and the universe flared iridescent blue.

  
_ I'm calling out from the deep ends of my bones  
_ _ Time says nothing back but I told you so _

* * *

Iris watched Leonard walk slowly to the fireplace, leaning against it like he needed something, anything, to take all his weight.

She just waited.

Barry was the one who broke the silence, a minute later, settling next to her on the couch. “Have we been gone long?”

“About twenty minutes, for me,” she answered, watching Len. There was a desolate look in his eyes, fixed on the empty shell of the hearth. She wanted to sympathize, she really did... but he wasn’t even looking at her, and he clearly wanted to be anywhere but here, and she was just _ done. _ “Are you ready to share now, Leonard?”

And then she sat back, mostly silent and increasingly stunned, as he rattled through half a story, and Iris tried not to feel like she was forcing it out of him. 

How he, Mick and Gideon had noticed a change in his powers, a few months ago. “Like they’d become less random.” First, taking him to places where he was needed— “...as if someone wanted me to be a hero,” he snarled. 

Iris shook her head. “I know the word’s not your favorite thing, Leonard, but didn’t you at least appreciate being needed? That is kind of your thing, these days.”

His face darkened. “I won’t be forced into doing something I don’t want to.” He added, “Not ever again,” in a low mutter that would have broken Iris’s heart, if she hadn’t been so damn angry.

And then he told them how things had changed.

“You’re telling me,” Barry said, low and slow, “that you think someone’s _ doing this _ to you?” He was sitting forward, his face a picture of rage at the idea. So much so that Leonard, looking up, shrank back perceptibly. 

“Can’t see what else could be behind it.” Leonard laughed - a desperate, awful sound. “All the worst things I’ve done, Barry. Just paraded in front of me like some fucked-up _ This Is Your Life, _ like someone wants to—" He swallowed. “Like someone wants to punish me for all of it.” He glanced between Iris and Barry, sitting silent in the face of it, then turned back to the wall.

Iris felt her mouth tighten. Someone was doing this to him. She wasn’t sure if she was more angry at whoever was behind it, or at him for not telling them any of this... or at herself, for not seeing any of the signs.

She crossed her arms, eyes narrowed at him. “Okay. So what are we going to do about this?”

He coughed a damp laugh, shaking his head at a far corner of the room. _ “We? _ Nothing.”

She felt Barry stiffen beside her. “Come on,” she coaxed, a last push. “You’ve had your moment of self-pity. But don’t tell me Leonard Snart ever gets knocked down and just stays down. Don’t tell me you’re going to give in to this.”

It felt like it came out of nowhere, when he slammed his fist into the wall above the fireplace. 

A breathless silence followed, broken a moment later when Barry stood and strode out of the room. Iris turned, following him with her eyes, only deciding against doing that in person when she turned back around.

Leonard’s face had twisted in pain. He was crouched against the wall, cradling his hand with his eyes closed. 

She had dropped down beside him in a moment. “What the hell, Len?” But she had a hand on his back. Her anger was draining away. No one she loved should be going through this, no matter how pissed she was. “Wiggle your fingers.”

He shook his head mutely.

“For fuck’s sake, Leonard.” She sighed. “Just do it.”

He obliged just as silently, wincing but stretching his fingers out. But he pulled away when she tried to grab his other hand. “Don’t.... You shouldn’t be taking care of me right now.”

It was like a light switching on, painful in its bright clarity. 

“No,” she said, “you’re probably right.” 

He froze, then raised his eyes to meet hers. 

“I’ve really done my best to be there for you, Leonard,” she went on, not inclined to fight the flood about to pour out of her. “Barry and I both have. But if you’re going to keep pushing us away, I don’t know what else we— what else I can do.” She shook her head. “I know things are a mess. But there are only so many ways I can tell you that you’re not alone, when you just keep on self-fulfilling that prophecy.” 

He turned a hard stare on the floor. “Iris, I can’t. You’re the two people I _can’t_ talk to right now.”

“Why not?” she asked softly. One last try.

Leonard grimaced. “You don’t know the worst things about me. Don’t know what I’ve done.”

“We know enough,” she tried to say. 

He ran a hand across his head. “I know you think that. I believe you mean it. But I don’t know what… if you _ knew.” _

She glanced up towards the hallway door that Barry had slammed behind him. “Last chance, Leonard,” she murmured, rubbing his upper arm, muscles taut with tension under her fingers. “Tell me you’ll let us help you fix this. The three of us can deal with anything together. But if you don’t know that by now…”

He closed his eyes. Shook his head.

She sighed and pulled away, standing up. “Do you have somewhere to stay?” The spike of pain that ran through her at his terrified face nearly made her relent, but she stood her ground. “Just for tonight,” she clarified. “You’ve scared Barry, and he and I are going to need to talk. And honestly, Len, you need to sort your head out.” She took a deep breath, still fighting the urge to smooth everything over and save him.

Maybe it was time for Leonard to start saving himself.

She crossed her arms, watching him pull himself up on unsteady legs, grab his coat and stagger to the door - where he turned around. Hopeless eyes met hers.

“You know where we are when you’re ready to trust us,” she said.

He nodded - and walked out, closing the door silently behind him. 

Iris went slowly to the bedroom, got into bed, and fell apart in Barry’s arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was an extremely hard chapter to write without demonising anyone OR making them doormats. I don't know if I've achieved the right balance, in writing the hard-to-reconcile feelings of all three of them, but I hope so. There are one or two more angsty chapters to come, but not without hope.
> 
> If you're skipping bits: 
> 
> The dub con/non con reference begins with "He vividly remembered the argument, even if he couldn’t hear all of it through the distant raised voices" and ends with "She wasn’t a person to Lewis..." Summary: Visiting his past, Len listens to an argument he remembers between himself and Lewis, who was forcing him to do a job involving a seduction scam. He contemplates how he made the choice to go through with the job himself and briefly remembers the event.
> 
> The brief moment where Len hits a wall starts at: "It felt like it came out of nowhere...." All reference to it ends at: "But he pulled away when she tried to grab his other hand."


	4. Appeal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Len asks for help. Again.

“Are you a complete fucking idiot?” she asked before she’d even got the door all the way open. 

“Nice to see you too, Frosty,” Len drawled, leaning as casually as he could manage in the doorway to her apartment and flashing her a smirk.

(when the world is shattering around you like ice, fall back on what you do best)

She rolled her eyes and let him in. “Please, help yourself,” she snarked when he headed straight for the drinks cabinet in the corner of her living room. He ignored her, despite the feeling of a cold stare on his back. “But then it looks like you’ve already got a head start on me.” 

Well, duh. He’d drunk his way through three bars already, ending up at Saints and Sinners at the end of the night. Because apparently it wasn’t enough for him to be going spiralling through his past - he had to add a few metaphorical stumbles back down memory lane for good measure. 

Len waved the whiskey bottle at Frost, pouring one out for her when she shrugged and nodded. “Save the lecture. I’ve already had one of those.” 

She perched on the edge of Cailtin’s couch, aiming a dark look at him. “Well, you deserve another one.” 

He passed her the drink and slumped down beside her with his own. “I take it Iris talked to you.”

Her smile was a little more knowing than Len was comfortable with. “To Caitlin, couple of hours ago. She figured you’d be looking for one of us sooner or later. Gotta say, I thought it would be later.” 

He shrugged, gulping down a mouthful, relishing the burn in his throat. At least it was something he could feel right now. “Apparently, I really have changed.”

“That remains to be seen.” She leaned back into the couch, her eyes still cold and angry at him. “And you’re damn lucky you got me and not Caitlin. The worst I can do is kick your ass.”

He paused, glass halfway back to his lips. “Maybe I deserve that too.” 

She sighed - a strange sound, in her otherworldly voice. “What the fuck is going on with you, Snart?”

“I screwed up,” he muttered.

“Yeah, I figured that much.” The snark was typical of the ever-prickly Frost, but her eyes were heavy with an empathy Len wasn’t used to seeing there. “What’s got you so fucked up that you’ll risk your domestic bliss with the multiverse’s most perfect couple?” 

He had begun counting carpet squares before he’d realised it. “Did you ever live up to your name, KF?” 

Her eyes widened briefly, and then she shook her head. “Not particularly. The name was sort of… inspired by someone who did.” She sipped her whiskey. “Been getting lost in the past, Leonard?” She shot him a wry, sad smile. “Guess there’s two meanings to that. Neither of them sound like much fun.”

The room was spinning. He let his head fall back against the back of the couch. It was a sour thought, that he was too old to drink this much. He couldn’t even fuck up properly anymore. He was a mess. “They deserve better than this. Better than a villain like me.”

“Oh, come on. That’s bullshit.”

“No.” 

(he’s fourteen years old in an alleyway watching blood gushing out of a man’s side. he looks down at the knife in his own hand—)

Len repressed a shudder. “They wouldn’t understand.” He took another gulp of whiskey. “They _ shouldn’t.” _

She tilted her head back and forth, considering. “You sure about that? Didn’t you kill someone right in front of Barry, when you first met?” 

Frost’s eyes were narrow in an icy stare at him again, and Len looked up, meeting the challenge. “They think they know who I am. They’ve got… no idea.” He frowned at the half-memory that the words brought, buzzing like an insect at the back of the mind, but he couldn’t place it. “Damn, I miss my eidetic memory. From before my brain got all fucked up. In the good old days, you know.”

“Right.” She raised skeptical eyebrows over her glass. “Back when you liked to kill people. Do you miss that too?”

“Wasn’t like that,” he muttered at the floor. 

She sighed, her stare softening into the distance. “I tried to kill Barry more than once, you know. And Cisco…” She trailed off, biting a black lip, quiet pain in her eyes. A second later, the mood passed and she was back to her usual self, aiming a self-deprecating grin at him. “The thing about Barry and Iris? They’re good. Truly, disgustingly good people. They forgave me for all kinds of crap I pulled on them when I was basically a stranger to them. You, they _ love. _You really think you’re too far gone for the same treatment?” 

“No, but… I can’t explain it,” he muttered, ignoring the sting behind his eyes. He had no idea how Frost, of all people, had this effect on him. There was something about her and Caitlin, though, and their unlikely truce. 

The two sides of her that had found peace.

Her smile turned sad. “You don’t have to explain it to me. But if you don’t start to try sharing it with them, you’ll lose them. You wanna relive the past that much, be my guest. But I don’t think you do.” 

Somehow, after everything he’d heard tonight, most of it just noise in his freaked-out brain, her words kept echoing in his head. 

(you wanna relive the past that much?) 

He remembered life before Barry and Iris. He couldn’t go back to that - not when he knew what it was like to have them in his life. He had to fix this.

“You love them, don’t you?” Frost’s echoing voice cut into his spiralling thoughts, her dark mouth curling with the surprise of realization. 

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. He swirled the last of the liquid around at the bottom of his glass, trying to make it last a little longer, even if the attempt was doomed. “They’re the only things really worth a damn in my life, KF. I can’t do this without them.”

“Lucky for you, you don’t have to.” Frost was standing, reaching out a hand for him. “Come on. The guest room’s nicer than the couch.”

“Thanks,” he said, and meant it.

“Drink some water,” she ordered, pointing towards the kitchen. 

He did as he was told.

* * *

“Iris!” Barry yelled over the comms. “It’s Fast Track!”

_“Not again,” _ he heard her sigh into his ear. _ “I thought we warned her she’d end up in the meta wing in Iron Heights if she messed with the Negative Speed Force again?”_

Barry sighed as he attempted to keep up. In her sleek suit, with her long dark hair flying behind her as she ran, the other speedster always looked too young and earnest for the kind of stunts she kept pulling. Her power source gave her a slight pace advantage over Barry, but she couldn’t keep it up for long. 

“Meena,” he called out, hoping Fast Track could hear him. He didn’t really understand how his own Speed Force connected to the one she used, and he wasn’t keen to find out.

Sliding off the water and onto the dock, she skidded to a stop. Her night-black suit was good camouflage at this late hour - Barry wondered for the thousandth time why he hadn’t thought of wearing a less conspicuous color - but he could see her glowing eyes as she ducked out from behind a warehouse. “What?” she snapped, in a voice that dripped with a terrifying excess of Negative Speed Force energy, far more than he’d ever heard from Nora. “I’m busy, Flash. I haven’t even broken any laws this time. So unless you want to break the Geneva Convention, which I wouldn’t put past you after what I’ve heard about what you used to do to metas... you can’t take me in.” 

He raised his hands. “I don’t want to take you in, Meena. I just want to talk. But you did promise not to use the Negative Speed Force anymore. It’s dangerous—” 

“Spare me the fake concern,” she hissed. “If that’s all you wanted, I’ll be off now. Bye-bye, Flash.” 

Fast Track took off, heading for a shimmering Negative portal. Barry flashed forward. After what he’d seen the Negative Speed Force do to Nora, he was _ not _ leaving anyone else at its mercy without help. 

Later, he would admit that he acted too quickly, and probably scared her. And that grabbing a young woman, even one who was trying to be his adversary, wasn’t ideal. But he didn’t have time to consult with Iris and the team. He reached out and took Fast Track by the arm. “Don’t,” he yelled. 

She was already at the entrance to the portal. Stretching out her other arm, she _ pulled _ something out of there - it looked like pure Negative Force energy - and reared back to throw it at him. “Stop!” Barry cried out, afraid it was already too late. He had no idea what being hit with a lightning bolt charged with that stuff would do to him, but probably nothing good.

Behind Barry, a familiar whirr was building. “He _ said, _don’t do that,” drawled Len’s very best Captain Cold voice. A single shot of cold later, Fast Track collapsed to the deck. 

“Meena!” Barry yelled, already at her side. 

“Lowest setting,” he heard Len murmur behind him. 

But in the instant he turned his head to look at Len, Fast Track struggled up. A bright flare of white lightning was shooting off into the dark before either of them could do anything else about it.

“Crap.” Barry sighed hard. He stood up, brushing dirt off his suit. Something inside him was warring over whether he wanted to hug Len, yell at him, or both. 

Len was leaning against a wooden pillar, examining the dock beneath him. “Friend of yours?”

“Not exactly.”

He got a brief knowing look for that. “But someone you’d like to save.” 

_ “What’s going on, Barry?” _ crackled Iris’s voice over the comms. 

“I lost her. Captain Cold kept her from doing too much damage to me. Just a sec.” He stepped around, trying to look Len in the eye. He wasn’t making it easy. “Thanks for the rescue.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. 

Then he turned around and walked away, leaving Barry alone in the dark.

* * *

“Come on, babe - we’ll make the coffee,” Barry said. It had been a long debrief, with half a dozen loudly-argued opinions shared on what should be done about Fast Track, and he was falling asleep on his feet.

The night Nora had gone back home to the future, the remaining Negative Speed Force energy in her cells had been picked up by the lightning storm that had been raging all day. Meena Dhawan, a young TV engineer who had been working on an aerial on the roof of a building near STAR Labs, was hit by lightning seeded with the Negative Force. Or so the team had figured out later, when she started using her powers to steal art and antiquities from Central City Museum. “What? I have a hobby!” she’d whined, when Barry brought her in. The team had given her a very long lecture on the dangers of the powers she was messing with _ and _ the quality of accommodation in the meta wing at Iron Heights. But apparently, none of it had sunk in. 

And so what if Barry wanted to save her? Even if he was starting to think he wasn’t very good at saving thieves who had access to too much power. 

Barry stepped out of the busy Cortex with Iris behind him, and Cisco and Ralph’s bickering in the background. They stepped to the right and—

Len was leaning against the corridor wall, his granite gaze fixed on the slice of metal wall opposite.

“Convenient,” he drawled, without looking at them. “I was just working up the courage to go in there.”

Barry blinked to stop himself from gaping at him. In the whole of the almost-year since Len was resurrected, Barry didn’t _ ever _ remember him coming to them after a fight or crisis - not without a hell of a lot of encouragement.

Iris laughed quietly. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Oh, about twenty minutes.” He rolled his eyes self-deprecatingly, and Barry snorted, despite himself.

Then, in a moment of clear bravery Barry wasn’t expecting, Len’s eyes flickered up to meet his, then over to Iris. “I’m good to try talking now, if you’ll listen. I’m sorry... about the lying, and the way I acted yesterday and— all of it.” His eyes got a little distant again. “The whole ‘no violence in the house’ thing… I, uh—”

“I know,” Barry said quickly, scrambling to head off the shared discomfort. He hadn’t seen shame in Len’s eyes for a long time. 

They all three remembered sitting down one night, after a drunk Len had brought an altercation with an old rival to their front door. Barry hadn’t forgotten how Iris looked when she told Len how hard Joe had worked to keep their home secure from criminals with grudges who might want to use his kids against him. How it was only much later that she’d realized that his history with Francine was the dark underside of her father’s obsession with keeping their home free of that kind of hostility. And when the ice in Len’s face still hadn’t melted, Barry - who’d been hoping he wouldn’t have to - stumbled through the story of the home invasion that took his mother from him. That had made sure he would never feel entirely safe between the four walls he called home, not for the rest of his life. Len knew the shape of that story, but Barry needed him to know how it _ felt. _ And that was the kicker - Barry didn’t doubt that Len did know what it was like to grow up feeling unsafe in your own home. But until he was able to share a single story with them, show them any sign that he was willing to identify with their experiences, then all Barry could do was tell him how _ he _ felt.

A very quiet Leonard had finally got the point. They never again saw him get violent anywhere near the apartment. A sudden, surprising absence of bruised knuckles and cut lips suggested he wasn’t getting into fights at all, anymore. Not until last night. Fights with himself definitely counted.

Len was still watching him, something wary and fragile in his eyes. Without thinking, Barry reached out and grabbed a familiar gloved hand. 

It was strange, how this had become their touchstone. They were two poles of a magnet, set at odds as much as they were compelled to come together. They couldn’t even reach out, skin to skin, without sparking at the edges of Time. And this was how they told each other they loved each other - not often with words, but with the touch that the universe so often denied to them. 

Iris was watching them, warm humor filling her eyes. “Is it a bad time to tease him about how that’s the quickest I’ve ever heard him apologize after a fight?”

“Probably,” Barry said with a chuckle. He gave Len’s arm a tug. “Come on. Lounge.”

Slumped over his coffee in the lounge a few minutes later, Len was clearly still having trouble finding words. Barry fought not to rush him. Len was quiet for a little while, until he finally looked up at Iris. Her smile had always unlocked his heart.

“This might suck,” he said.

“Tell us anyway,” Barry said, ignoring the stab in his gut, and Len nodded. 

“I’ve done some real shit in my time. More terrible things than either of you know.” He was running his fingers up and down the side of his coffee mug in an endless spiral. “More than I ever _ wanted _ you to know.”

“Well, we kind of assumed—” Barry started, cutting off when Iris kicked him in the shin.

Len was already shaking his head. “Whatever you’ve guessed, trust me, I’ve done worse.”

His eyes were dark, but it wasn’t guilt shadowing them. It was something Barry couldn’t begin to read. He loved Len, but he was too often left feeling like he shared his life with a complete mystery. “Okay, but I still don’t get it. You’re not doing any of that now. You’ve changed.” Barry grasped at the only straw that he could understand. “Is this like Flashpoint - are you worried you’re going to change your own timeline, or…?” 

Snorting a derisive laugh that hurt a little, Len put his mug down. “No. That’s not what I’m worried about.” He sighed and reached out a hand, running his fingers through Barry’s hair like he sometimes did when he couldn’t ask for comfort. The normalcy of it settled Barry’s nerves, just a little. “Been trying to pretend none of it ever happened. But I haven’t changed - not really.”

Iris was shaking her head hard, like she could prove him wrong through her own willpower. “Oh, that’s just not true, Leonard.” 

He shook his head slowly. “I can do all the pseudo-heroic deeds you like. Doesn’t change what I am. Come with me - you’ll see.”

Barry half expected to see a shadow of the old Captain Cold in his face, but there was only sadness there. “What do you mean, come with you?”

As she always did, where Len was concerned, Iris got there a little bit before Barry. “He wants us to come back into his timeline with him,” she said, staring into her empty latte glass.

Len raised his eyebrows in affirmation. “I can’t figure this out alone. Need you to help me look at this problem from a different angle - or two.” He let out a quiet chuckle. “How often d’you hear me ask for help, Scarlet? Don’t make me beg.”

“No, no, of course not,” Barry scrambled to say. He’d just been stunned into silence by the idea that Len would willingly take them back in time to see things he never even strayed towards in casual conversation. “Is this really what you want?” 

His jaw was set tight. “Ain't exactly my idea of a good time. But I trust you. Both of you.” Before Barry could react to the unfamiliar warmth filling his chest, he saw Len’s face and shut up. “Something I need to tell you, first. Don’t wanna lie to you anymore.” 

“Anything,” Iris said, leaning forward on his other side. 

He took a gulp of his coffee and stood up, taking a few steps away towards the balcony. The wind was lifting and billowing the drapes around the edges of the big window. A few weak stars were appearing in the evening twilight, the rest drowned out by the city lights below. In his blue ribbed super-suit, with the cold gun at his thigh, Len was a dark shape against all that light.

He told them a story, looking out at the city the whole time.

When he was done, Barry said, “Shit.” Iris just sat silently on his other side.

“Yeah,” Len murmured. ”Look... You’re about to see some shitty sides of me, one way or another. You keep saying it’s all in the past - but sometimes that’s a hell of a lot closer to the present than you’d think, for a time traveler.” When he turned around, there was something old and timeless in his gaze. “Do you understand that I don’t regret any of it? The reason I won’t let you call me a hero isn’t what I did. It’s that I’d do it all again.” 

Barry shook his head. “I don’t understand—”

“No, of course you don’t, Barry.” He sighed. “You’re an actual hero. Both of you. You see too much good where it— doesn’t exist…” He trailed off, turning back to the stars.

Iris’s hand tightened around Barry’s - he hadn’t even felt her holding it - but she didn’t say anything.

“I saw how you looked when you watched yourself walk away from Lisa,” Barry protested. 

Len turned around, inclining his head towards Barry. “...Fine. I regret some of it.” He had his hand on his gun, as if he were afraid to let go. “But doing what I had to do to survive? No.”

“Not even when you killed people?” Barry asked quietly. 

“Not even then.” As he caught Iris’s eye again, his tone softened, and he stepped back towards her. “I wish I did.”

Iris leaned up on her hand on the counter. “Okay. We asked you to be honest, and I appreciate that you’ve tried. Of course we’ll do whatever we can to help you figure out what’s going on, fix this. Beyond that? Let’s just wait and see.”

Barry lowered his eyes and let her take over. A dull sense of dread was sitting like a stone in his gut. He didn’t want to wait and see... He didn’t want to _ see. _

“But this all ends now, Leonard,” she went on, reaching up to put a hand on his arm. “The running away, the refusing to talk to us, the defensive shit… If we do this, we do it together.” 

“He’s never stopping with the defensive shit,” Barry muttered, fighting a grin.

Leonard choked back a laugh. “Yeah, not asking for anything small there, are you, Iris?” But he nodded at her. “Okay. I’ll try.”

Barry found his voice at last. There was one more thing he didn’t understand. “After what you’ve just said, why would you want us to see that part of your life?”

Len’s voice shook when he said, “Oh, I don’t. Never wanted anything less. But someone’s really trying to drag me through hell here.” His hands were drumming on the counter. “If you really mean it, that I can ask for help… don’t make me do this alone.”

No matter what else Barry was feeling, he couldn’t refuse him that. Splaying a soft hand over Len’s, he stilled his fingers. “Okay.”

Len sat down on the stool between them again, drawing a smile from Iris. “So,” he said, clearing his throat. “Where do we start?”

The three of them walked hand in hand back to the Cortex.  
  


_ Still waters rising in my mind  
_ _Black and deep, smoke behind my eyes_

* * *

“You’re an idiot,” griped a familiar gruff voice, as Len stepped back into the Cortex with Barry and Iris trailing behind. “I can’t believe it took you this long to tell them.”

“What is with everyone calling me an idiot this week? Love you too, Mick.” He grinned at his old friend, and turned a glare on the STAR Labs team. “Right, ‘fess up. Which one of you called him?”

Caitlin raised an unconcerned hand, meeting his eye with a look that dared him to complain. He laughed and tossed her a lollipop he’d stolen from the jar in the lounge.

“Stop buttering her up with my snacks.” Cisco didn’t turn away from the whiteboard, where he was scribbling numbers, to varying grunts of approval or disagreement from Mick.

Len shrugged. “She’s the only person in this room with the power to ground me from the Waverider.” 

“And don’t think I won’t, if this harebrained plan of yours goes wrong. You’re on thin ice, Cold.” He snorted, and she mock-glared at him, then threw one at Mick for good measure, who stiffened and looked back at the board. Mick had been appropriately terrified of Caitlin ever since he started spending more time at STAR Labs. He claimed she’d once told him she was still working on her vengeance plan for the kidnapping, “because revenge is a dish best served Frosty-cold.” Len didn’t know whether to believe Mick or not. Probably best not to think about it.

“Guys,” Barry said, his face set in the concentrated frown that said he’d shifted into science mode. Len would never say it out loud, but his heart did a little leap every time Barry got that look. It was even more impressive than his hero face. “We don’t know how long we’ve got till Len starts time jumping again, and he had trouble getting back last time, so let’s get working on this. We need to put together any clues we can find to what’s going on. Then Len’s taking me and Iris back with him to… observe.” Len ignored the twinge of fear that came with that thought. Barry frowned at the board. “Cisco, have you calculated something wrong? These equations don’t make sense.”

Len felt his eyebrows crease into a frown. 

On his right, Iris asked, “What?”

“I’m not sure, but… Barry, what are the equations about?” 

With Barry deep in thought, Cisco answered instead. “Vibrations in the multiverse. I can calculate changes in the timeline based on what I vibe across different universes. Mick can tell if the calculations are right. Barry too, usually.”

“Huh.” Len glanced at his old partner, impressed. “That a Chronos thing?”

“Yup,” Mick said shortly. 

“Except this _isn’t_ right.” Barry pointed at a symbol that Len didn’t recognise - it looked like one of Nora’s time-fixed symbols. “What’s this constant?”

Cisco shrugged. “It’s always been there. Well, ever since we started doing this.”

Shaking his head, Barry said, “It’s changed.”

The sudden weight of certainty was heavy in Len’s chest. “Could it be me?”

Barry’s eyebrows raised at him. “What makes you say that?”

Len shared a look with Mick. 

“Snart’s been having these dreams,” Mick said, apparently deciding that Len wasn’t going to mention it. “Knows things he shouldn’t, sometimes. Useful on missions, even if they are a bit cryptic.” 

The pissed-off stare Barry was aiming at Len, over folded arms, was a little uncomfortable. “Dreams, too? Anything else you haven’t told us?”

Len picked a shiny patch of floor to stare at. “Don’t think so, but it’s hard to say. It’s all been a little overwhelming.”

Glancing back up, he saw some of Barry’s anger ebbing away. “Right. Sorry.”

Len leaned back against the console, tapping his foot. “When did this - what did you call it, Ramon? A constant? When did it first change?” 

He frowned at the board. “It’s been in flux for a while now. When I vibe it, it feels like something’s—”

“Pushing it,” Len said in unison with him. 

Cisco dropped his board marker. He leaned down to pick it up, and came back up nodding at Len. “Like something’s trying to force it out the way. Or…” 

“Move its attention elsewhere,” Len finished for him.

Barry was blinking between the two of them. “So much for solving this with equations,” he said, grinning. “Am I any use at all anymore?”

“Sure you are, Scarlet,” Len said in a soothing voice. “You can run really fast. It’s handy in a crisis.”

Iris laughed out loud, then looked appropriately sorry when Barry glared at her.

Barry turned back to the board, starting to debate some point of math with Cisco that Len couldn’t translate into the guttural sense of Time that he carried inside him. He shrugged at Iris, who grinned back at him. It settled something that was raging deep within him. She was… safe. And that was all he wanted to be for her, too. “I really am sorry for being such an asshole.”

Iris smiled like it was all going to be okay. “I know.”

“When this is all over,” he said, low enough that he could be sure the nerds wouldn’t overhear, “I wanna take you out. A date. Just the two of us.”

She was looking at him like they were two teenagers in love, and it left Len with the odd feeling that he was somehow managing to charm the most popular girl in school. “I don’t think we’ve ever done that,” she said with a little smile.

His smile back at her was only a little bit of a smirk. “Time we did. You’ll get a proper apology, Ms. West-Allen. I promise.”

“I’d better,” she griped, but she was still smiling. 

He paused, looking back up at her with a vulnerability that he couldn’t hide. By now, he guessed she knew what it cost him to show her that. “I can’t promise this ain’t gonna get worse before it gets better.”

She just bumped his shoulder, not making any more promises out loud, and he was grateful. 

“So,” Barry was saying, tapping his whiteboard marker against his chin. “Are we theorizing that there’s a sentient force behind all of this?”

Len turned around. The symbols on the board were still mostly unintelligible, but there was a pattern to them that he almost recognized. “We might be.”

Barry was nodding at him with the kind of trust that set Len’s heart racing - and reminded him just how little he deserved it, from either of them. “Then let’s test that hypothesis.”

The corners of the room were turning fuzzy, flooding the world with blue like ink spreading through water. Len grabbed Barry’s hand. _“Time_ to do just that.”

“Now?” he heard Iris ask. She sounded very far away. He reached for her in the dark, grateful when she took his other hand. 

“Now,” Len confirmed. “And whatever you do, don’t let go.”

(please, don’t let go)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meena Dhawan/Fast Track is a DC Comics character whose story I haven’t even tried to keep accurate, though her character here is at least _vaguely_ inspired by the original. But you don’t need to know her from comics to follow this. (Damn, I’d love to see the real version of her in The Flash TV show, though...)
> 
> Thanks to Thette for excellent beta reading. Even if she did make me add an action scene. :D


	5. Abandoned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry struggles when he’s faced with Len’s past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: brief description of a shooting, overheard but not shown, and reference to it in a couple of discussions that follow. More details are at the end, if you want to skip it.

Once the dizziness had calmed down, Iris was surprised when she opened her eyes to find herself somewhere that didn’t look much like the past. 

They were on the docks in Central City. Boarded-up warehouses stood in dark lines along the waterfront, like sea monsters rising from the deep. The lack of foot or boat traffic suggested it was the middle of the night.

“Perfect,” Len muttered behind her, and she whirled around to check he was upright. He looked surprisingly healthy, compared with the last time she’d traveled like this with him, all those months ago. He was looking at her with something like shame, scratching the back of his neck. “Can I change my mind and just have you two go for a nice walk?” he drawled.

“No,” Barry said, stepping up behind them and laying a hand on Len’s shoulder. Raising his eyes to take in the warehouses, he asked hesitantly, “Here?”

“Here,” Len confirmed. He swallowed hard, as if he was nauseated - a weakness Iris knew he wouldn’t have wanted anyone to notice, so she said nothing - and moved towards the second row of warehouses. “We need a spot where we can look but stay out of sight. We gotta confirm anything strange or different about these trips.”

Barry was already vibrating the padlock of an adjacent warehouse - it fell off the door in pieces. “Close enough to the action?” he asked.

Len’s lips thinned. It looked like he was fighting the urge to tell Barry that this wasn’t a movie. “Close enough.” 

They slipped inside the dark warehouse, pulling the door shut behind them. Iris followed Len to the broken window, where he was pulling torn curtains halfway across. “Do you know what the date is?” she asked quietly.

He stilled, then looked at her. “Yes.” He turned back to the window, clearly reluctant to say any more for now, and she didn’t ask.

The expectant silence had them all on edge. Barry was rubbing the back of his neck and tapping his foot, as if he was desperate to move. Iris put a light hand between his shoulder blades, feeling a little of his tension ease out as he exhaled. 

Finally, Len’s voice shattered the silence. “This is it,” he murmured, very quietly.

Through the window, Iris could see a group of people approaching the nearby warehouse. Nothing about them really shouted ‘criminals’ to her. In their jeans and hardy jackets they could have been a group of dock workers heading off for the night - and that was probably the impression they were aiming for. One or two of them had roaming eyes, their shifty glances around the area marking them out as the less experienced members of the group. At the head of the gang - _ crew, _Iris corrected herself - were a Leonard Snart and a Mick Rory who looked just a few years younger than the ones she knew. Confidence radiated from the younger Snart, who was unmistakably the one in charge. 

It hit Iris harder than she was expecting. Almost everything about this man was different from the Leonard she knew. He was a criminal. It was an identity, obvious as the prison tattoo on his arm - clear in the hard way he stood, walked, gave orders. 

Of course Iris had known Len was a thief and a killer when she met him. It had been almost _ all _ she’d known about him. But by the time she really started connecting with him, he had already left that life behind. Maybe that was why it hadn’t stuck, when he’d made that desperate little attempt at returning to the criminal life, soon after his return from the dead. It wasn’t him anymore. 

She strained her eyes at the dusty window, risking a closer look… and what she saw then was worse. There were too many things that she _ did _ recognize in the Snart who was now beckoning to a young white guy, laying a heavy hand on his arm that said _ screw this up and you’re done. _ Iris knew that sneer. The calculating gaze, counting seconds, analysing people. The brutal look behind his eyes that said he was willing to do whatever it took to get what he wanted. 

She glanced at her Leonard. His eyes were fixed on the scene as if he couldn’t look away. She wondered if he was seeing all the ways he hadn’t changed, too.

“Shoulda been the easiest heist we ever pulled off,” Len said, his drawl thickening into something unfamiliar. “But we screwed it up.”

Through the window, Iris could see the crew at the door of the warehouse. As the young crew member cracked the security pad, the other Len gave a hand signal that didn’t mean anything to Iris. She’d long wondered if his unique gestures were left over from some kind of criminal code. 

The door swung open, and the crew entered one by one, while the young guy stood watch at the door.

“Art,” Leonard whispered beside her. His gaze hadn’t moved from the window. “Got word that one of the highest value shipments Central City had ever seen was coming in that night, courtesy of the Belmont Gallery - they never had great security, and we’d already bribed the guards to make themselves scarce. Plan was, anything went wrong, Mick would burn the evidence and get the crew out.” He nodded at the scene unfolding in front of them. “Watch how well that went down.”

Iris frowned in confusion. There was nothing to see - the crew had closed the warehouse doors behind them.

And then she heard the sirens.

Len shook his head, clearly lost in the memory. “There was no way they’d have found out. That’s how I knew we had a snitch.”

The shriek of the sirens was closer now, clearly heading in their direction.

Iris couldn’t hear anything from inside the warehouse… until it went up in flames. 

Then, chaos erupted. Iris could make out Snart’s voice somewhere among the yelling. His attempts to take charge were failing, from the sound of it. It was hard to make out through the noise, but she couldn’t hear Mick’s voice.

Barry was shaking his head. “I don’t under—” 

He fell silent with the gunshot. 

Through the windows of the warehouse, now illuminated by flames, Iris could see beams falling. Snart appeared, clearing a path to the exit. “Out, before they get here!” Iris heard Snart yell, and three of the crew fled.

The young guy, the one who had cracked the security system, wasn’t with them.

He was on the floor.

Snart ignored him, turning back to the flames. “Mick, _ leave!” _he yelled. He got only silence in return. Iris thought she could make out the shadow of Mick, unmoving, his face turned towards the fire - but it could have been an optical illusion in the bright firelight.

Snart turned and strode out of the warehouse, disappearing into the darkness.

Iris, Barry and Len all stood silent until after the police arrived, and then the firefighters, dragging a visibly charred Mick Rory out of there on a stretcher. Len swallowed hard and turned away from the window. The firemen were flanked by cops with guns raised, which Iris thought was overkill for an unconscious burn victim - but then, she’d heard that Mick had woken up and escaped from the ambulance, so maybe it wasn’t. 

“What happened?” Iris asked, long after the fire truck’s sirens faded into the distance, when she couldn’t take the tense silence anymore. She turned around when Len didn’t answer. 

He was standing a little way behind them, grinding the toecap of his boot into the dust on the floor. His face was pinched.

“Leonard,” she said.

“It was my fault.” He didn’t look up from the floor. “Hudson - the guy who broke us in. I knew he was the weak link from the start.” His voice was low, like he was talking to himself. “He’d been scared all week while we were planning, but it was his first big heist, so I figured it was just nerves. As soon as I heard the sirens, I knew he’d turned us in.” He laughed a little, his eyes drifting to the ceiling. “Mick was following the damn plan, for once in his life. He set the warehouse on fire… and then he wouldn’t get out. He wouldn’t _ fucking leave.” _

“What happened to Hudson?” she asked, but she already knew.

“Shot him,” Leonard said without missing a beat.

On her other side, she felt Barry go very, very still. 

She wasn’t the only one who noticed. Len glanced up at him, and Iris saw him slip into defensive mode. “Really, Flash? I thought we covered the thing where I’ve killed people.”

“Are we done here?” Barry asked Iris, after a moment’s pause.

“Yes,” she said. 

“…No,” Len said, taking a step closer to the window. “That’s— what?”

Iris leaned in next to him. On the other side of the window, there was a subtle flash of blue light. 

Then the other Snart - no, another Snart entirely, Iris realized - emerged from behind a nearby pillar, checking for cops and firefighters before ducking under yellow police tape and back into the warehouse.

“That never happened.” Len’s eyes were wide at the window. “I didn’t go back.”

Iris gestured in the direction of the warehouse. “Apparently, you did. Or… maybe you _ will?” _

Len was shaking his head. “I don’t get it. If I was gonna change things, wouldn’t I have done something before Mick got hurt? Wouldn’t I have fixed it?”

“I thought you didn’t regret anything,” Barry said in a flat, tired voice.

“Iris.” Len grabbed the windowsill. “Flash. Can either of you see that?

Iris followed his gaze, but couldn’t see anything but darkness. “What?” Barry was shaking his head, too.

“Thought I saw someone moving out there. Blue… blue guy.” He shook his head. “Guess I’m finally losing my mind.”

They all watched as the other Snart eventually resurfaced, looking around again before heading behind an adjacent wall... and disappearing.

Leonard turned away from the window. “Need you to speed us somewhere, Flash. A safe house - cabin just past the Keystone Bridge.” He wasn’t looking at Barry, but a sudden gust of wind suggested that arguing wasn’t high on Barry’s agenda right now.

Glancing back out of the window, while she waited just a few seconds for his return, Iris tried to push away the image of Barry’s face when Leonard admitted he shot a member of his crew.

It was all going to be fine.

* * *

The cabin was almost homely. 

“What,” asked a sarcastic Len, “you thought every safe house was an abandoned warehouse with broken windows?” 

Barry didn’t answer.

There was even a full set of crockery in the kitchen. Finding that the gas stove worked, Barry set about making cocoa. “Any chance we’ll be interrupted?” he asked Len, who just shook his head.

There were mini marshmallows in the cupboard.

When Barry handed out the cocoa, Len didn’t look at him - but he stayed nearby, curling up on a chair while Barry and Iris sat on the sofa.

“So,” Iris said, blowing on her mug, “should we be talking strategy? Getting your observations from tonight?”

Len had his hands clenched together, up at his face. “Not right now,” he said, after a moment. “Let’s see if we jump. Last time, I went to five time periods in five days. There are beds upstairs and it’s warm. We can wait it out - shouldn’t be long.” 

Barry was trying to stop the shaking in his hands. Too late - Len had already noticed and glanced away again. “I guess you’ve got questions, Barry.”

“Not really,” he muttered into his cocoa. The image of the other Len, stepping casually over the body of a man he had shot, had seared itself into his memory.

Len raised disbelieving eyebrows. “Oh, go on, Barry. Get pissed at me. You know you want to.” He sighed. “What do you want me to say?”

Something was itching at the back of Barry’s busy mind. A case, back when he’d just been a CSI assistant.

He blinked up at Len. “I think I processed the evidence from that shooting,” he said, as calmly as he could.

Len’s eyes flickered upwards, but otherwise he didn’t move an inch. “Did you?” He sounded almost bored, his face impassive, but there was something in his eyes.

“Kids,” Barry murmured, trying to remember. He looked up into Len’s paling face. “He had two little girls.” 

When Len didn’t answer, Barry pushed himself off the couch, his hand slamming into his mug of cocoa as he scrambled to get up. It landed on the carpet with a dull thud. A dark stain began seeping, spreading across the clean white rug.

No one moved to clean up the mess.

Barry held his breath… and it exploded out of him._ “Kids, _ Len!” 

“Right,” he drawled. “I didn’t realize you thought I only killed evil mob bosses with maniacal laughs and no family. So sorry to disappoint you.”

Leonard wouldn’t even fucking look at him.

His fists clenched tight at his sides, Barry marched out of the cabin, slamming the door behind him.

* * *

He sat on a porch swing for a while. The rocking motion was soothing. It stopped him thinking. 

He didn’t know how much later it was when he heard footsteps behind him. There was a broad hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Barry didn’t look around. “For?”

“Getting defensive. It’s what I do.”

Barry almost smiled. “Yeah. I figured that out by now.”

“Talk to me.”

“Not until you talk to me.” It was a childish reply, but he couldn’t make himself care.

Len pulled on the chain of the swing, slowing its motion, and turned Barry around to face him. “Fine. Then I’ll talk.” He held Barry’s gaze for a minute. Then he took a step away, jumping off the edge of the decking, and leaned against the wall of the cabin.

Getting up, Barry slowly took the steps down, stopping a little way away from Len. He couldn’t quite look at him right now. “Okay then. Explain it to me.”

“Explain what, Barry? Why I killed the guy?” He was staring into the darkness, down towards the lake. “He turned us in. That didn’t just mean prison for me and my crew. It could easily have got us all killed.” He shrugged, clearly going for an air of indifference that Barry could see right through. “It was about surviving.”

“And let’s just say for a minute that I accept that… That’s not what I meant.” He took an unsteady breath. “I really want to understand, Len. Why did you live like this? I know about your father, and yeah, that explains a lot. But why did you _ keep _ living like this?”

Len’s face was set hard, his eyes fixed on the dry, unforgiving ground. “I told you. Survival. This is the person I had to become to get through… the things that happened.” Barry’s face must have showed his skepticism, because he added quickly, “That’s a reason, not an excuse. These were my choices. No one else’s. But I chose to survive—” he glanced up at Barry— “and that’s not an easy thing to give up doing. And yeah, part of me wishes I could have been like you, and have it all turn me into a hero. But it didn’t. I became the villain.”

There was something dangerous in his face that was hard to look at. Barry couldn’t breathe till Len turned away again. “That can’t be all it was,” he pushed.

“No.” Len smirked, just a little. “You know it wasn’t. I wanted to be the best at what I did, and I was. Better than my father. Better than all the Families in this town, who thought I was a worthless piece of shit. Better than every shitty judge and teacher who said I was just a Snart, how could I ever amount to anything? I proved every fucking one of them wrong, and I kept proving them wrong.” He was tripping over words, breathing faster. He seemed to realise he was spiralling - paused and took a slow breath. “I’ll never be that good at anything ever again. I miss that. Miss a lot about it…”

“This is what you didn’t want me to see.” Harsh realisation hit Barry as he said the words, his voice cracking at the end. He cleared his throat. “The things you don’t regret.”

“Yeah. Like I tried to tell you,” Len drawled. “The things I do regret, those are the easy part.” He glanced at Barry with fear in his eyes, and suddenly there was no trace of the smirk left. “You won’t hate me for those.”

Their faces flickered through Barry’s head. Leonard Snart’s victims. The men who had sold him the stolen cold gun. The usher in the movie theater, who Barry wasn’t fast enough to help - he’d never forgotten that. Hudson, from tonight’s crew, shot and still on the warehouse floor. Dozens more who didn’t have faces, whose names Barry would never know.

Barry almost wished he could hate him. 

Len’s hands were tapping out a familiar pattern against the wall, an anxious rhythm Barry knew well. His blue eyes were captivated by the stars - even if he probably wasn’t seeing them, but looking at his web of the timeline, laid out across the universe. He was wearing the leather jacket Iris and Barry had bought him for his birthday, after he’d insisted he didn’t need a present and that birthdays sucked. His face when he’d opened the box had made all the earlier protests worth it._ I haven’t had a birthday present since my mom died, _ he admitted days later, in a quiet moment in bed. 

It was the first time he’d told Barry and Iris that he loved them.

Barry walked around to stand beside Len against the wall, kicking his feet in the dirt. “I don’t hate you, Len.” He glanced at him, but Len’s eyes were still turned towards the sky. “Yeah, it hurts. Hearing you kill that guy was pretty brutal. And, yeah… he had kids…” 

Barry trailed off and followed Len’s gaze upwards. The stars were dizzying, this far outside the city - the whole cosmos laid out above them. Somewhere up there, out there, was a universe where a version of Barry visited his parents for dinner every Sunday, and another where a version of Len had never felt like he needed to live a life of crime to survive.

But Barry had met some of those other Leonard Snarts. And _ this _ was the version of Len that he loved. 

“I don’t care about being a hero,” Len said, so quietly that it hurt to hear. “I only care about being yours.”

Barry couldn’t stand it anymore. He stepped forward. “Len, look at me.” 

The thief shook his head. His chest was rising and falling, now, hard and erratic.

“Incoming,” Barry said, their old code word signalling that he was about to touch Len, skin to skin. Painfully slowly, he reached out a hand. Len raised surprised eyebrows, then shrugged and nodded. Barry took Len’s chin in his hand, tilting his face towards him. Len’s eyes were wide and scared. “I’m not going anywhere, Len, and - well, I can’t speak for her, but I’m pretty sure neither is Iris.”

“She’s not,” said another voice, moving towards them, but neither Barry nor Len broke eye contact to look at her.

“And, yeah, this is gonna take me some time to process. But you were who you were— you are who you are. And I’m not going to judge you for either.”

“Maybe you should,” Len muttered, as Iris joined them, standing silently nearby.

Barry chuckled under his breath. “That’s why we have a legal system.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Len’s eyes got wider. “Yeah,” he whispered, turning away, pulling out of Barry’s grasp.

Iris put a hand on his shoulder before he could walk off. “What did we say about running away?”

Len just shook his head at her, licking his lips. Barry wanted to say something to ease that desperate look in his eyes, but he had a feeling Iris would have better luck there. 

“Iris, I… You know I should be in prison, right?”

“Yes,” she replied without flinching, and Barry watched Len swallow. “You’re also legally dead, work with a team of superheroes on a time ship that doesn’t officially exist, and you can do impossible things that would freak out every physicist on Earth-1 if they found out. Also, you’ve saved the world a few times. Oh, and your boyfriend is the Flash.” Barry snorted quietly. “Everything about you is a paradox, Leonard. So, yeah, you could turn yourself in and waste away in a prison cell for the rest of your life, if you wanted to. And maybe it is what you deserve.” 

She offered him her hand, a challenge clear in her face. 

“Or,” she went on, “you could work towards that redemption thing that everyone seems to want to come a little too easy to them, these days.” She tilted her head, her eyes twinkling a little. “I mean, it’s not like you’ll ever reach it. So what’s the point, right?”

Len was matching her stare for stare now. “What is the point? I ain’t ever making up for any of it.”

“Nope,” she answered softly. “Someone once told me that redemption is a station on a ghost-train line. You’re always travelling towards it and it never gets any closer. And you’ll always have to live with the specters of the past. But there’s a lot of work to be done along the way, and no one else there to do it.” 

She was still holding out her hand. Still waiting for him to make a choice. 

“No, you never can make up for the things you’ve done,” she added, catching Barry’s eye. He nodded at her last-ditch attempt, and she looked back at Len. “But you can try, and make the world a better place in the process. And not waste that gift you were given.” 

He reached out and grasped her hand, letting her pull him towards her. “Who told you that, about redemption?”

She grinned at him. “Oliver Queen.”

“Of course.” His eye roll made Barry smile. 

“Now, are you going to quit this ‘I’m such a self-reliant villainous badass’ shit, and let us help you?” she asked firmly, despite a bit of a twinkle in her eyes.

He nodded mutely for a minute, and didn’t struggle when she wrapped her arms around him. “Iris,” he whispered, hiding his face in her shoulder. 

He didn’t try to apologize. Barry guessed he would never be able to do that, given what he’d just told him. He just needed breathing space.

They all did.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Barry murmured to Iris, and she nodded at him.

He was glad no one offered him company. He wanted to be alone.

Barry walked down to the edge of the lake, sparkling in the moonlight, and found a bench to sit on. He put his head in his hands and cried for two little girls who lost a father, criminal or not, many years and two hours ago.

And for a boy who lost a mother, even more years ago, though sometimes it still felt like yesterday.

And for himself, now, who couldn’t tell the heroes from the villains anymore, and wished he didn’t want to.  
  


_ To be in your heart I failed my own  
_ _Love says nothing back but I told you so_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The shooting, which Barry and Iris hear but don’t see, starts at “Then, chaos erupted” and ends with “Snart turned and strode out of the warehouse, disappearing into the darkness.” Summary: in the warehouse, Barry, Len and Iris hear a gunshot during the chaos of a heist gone wrong. Len references this shooting a few times afterwards, but not in any detail.
> 
> There’s one more chapter in Part 1 of this story, and then I’m going to take a few weeks’ break before starting to post Part 2, as work and life have exploded a bit, and I don’t want to leave you hanging without warning! I don’t plan to leave it too long though :)


	6. Stories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One smut scene here - Iris/Len - see end notes for details of where it starts/ends.

Len woke up early the next morning, and turned his head to take in the empty space on his other side. 

“Hey,” said the most welcome voice he could have heard right now, because at least he wasn’t losing both of them at once.

“Where’s Barry?”

“He woke up early - you just missed him. He went out for a walk.”

Len kept his eyes on the empty space. “Did you even hear him come in last night?”

When she smiled at him, it was tainted with sadness. Len had done that to her. “Give him space, okay?”

“Sure,” he muttered, and leaned in to kiss her forehead. “So… we have the bed to ourselves?”

He felt her smiling against him. Gently she pulled his face down to her lips, her hands caressing his face as she kissed him. Then she paused. “Will he mind if we do this without him?”

Would he? Len had no idea how pissed Barry was, and he was trying not to think about it. The thought of this being too much for them to come back from was too much to handle. “He never did before, but…”

She frowned, her hand stroking the back of his neck. “He’s gonna get his head around all of it, Leonard. Give him time.”

Len snorted. “I badly want to make a pun, but I won’t.”

She rolled her eyes, just a little. “Thank you.”

He grinned and moved in to kiss her again, sliding smoothly down to her neck. He glanced up to see her eyes flutter closed as she sighed, relaxing into the beginnings of bliss. Soon her hands were moving to cup his ass, and then he felt a familiar, welcome tugging at the cord of his sweatpants. He reciprocated, easing off her shirt and unclasping her bra, softly and slowly. Holding back his eagerness, even now. Even with Iris.

They were quiet... gentle. Despite the uncanny setting, and the danger simmering behind it, Len didn’t want to rush this. There was a longing he could only express in taking things slow. It was mixed with the old frustration of needing Iris to know how much he loved her, but not knowing how to cross the chasm that lay between him and the right way to say it. It felt like the two of them needed time, for reconnecting - for quiet apologies that he couldn’t make with words. 

He never could. 

When he slid inside her, she caught his gaze and held on like she would never let go. They were both so quiet, their rising hitched breathing the only outward sign of what they were doing. Consumed with each other, right up until they came almost together, Iris’s quiet moans and the crescendo of Len’s panting perfectly in tune.

Afterwards, as she lay next to him with his arm tight around her, he asked, “Have you forgiven me?” It was terrible timing, but he couldn’t shake the looming fear that she _ hadn’t. _

Her eyes opened with a look of sympathy that he didn’t want. “It’s not about forgiveness, Leonard. You don’t need that from us. And, anyway, I can see that you’re trying.” She stroked his cheek. “Leonard… what do _ you _ want?”

He stared at her, while she frowned back at him. It felt like a strange, out-of-place question, but of course she’d care about that - about him - in all of this mess, while he was trying to figure out who and what he was. “Not sure anyone’s ever asked me that before,” he admitted. “Even your husband…” He felt himself sighing - another damn tell. He was giving them away on the daily, now. “I know he doesn’t mean to push, but he does keep telling me what I should be.”

Her silent gaze at him was intense. 

And then he found himself admitting something he hadn’t said out loud yet. “Think he’s trying to remake me in his image? He’s had this ‘hero’ crap in his head for a long time.” His arm tightened around Iris as, not even trying to disguise the sadness in his voice, he asked, “Guess he really wanted it to be true, huh?”

“Even the heroes aren’t all that good, sometimes, Leonard.” Her eyes narrowed, sizing him up. “I know it’s not quite the same, but you think I haven’t thought about killing people? With the life we lead?”

“Like who?” He couldn’t imagine Iris having enough fury in her to want to end someone’s life, even though he knew she could take care of herself. 

She shook her head. “God, so many people. Eobard Thawne. Hunter Zolomon. A dozen other villains who put my life in danger, or the life of the man I loved, or the rest of the team…” Something even sadder and darker shadowed her face, and she added, “Francine West.”

He felt his eyes widen at her. “Really?” he whispered.

Iris smiled sadly back at him. “Surprised? Why, ‘cause I’m one of the good guys? We all have secret thoughts like that, Len. Sometimes, in our darkest moments, we all want someone else to suffer… or just to stop hurting us.” 

“Didn’t kill your mother, though, did you? I killed my father.” He wasn’t looking at her, but he could feel her stroking his arm. He didn’t deserve the comfort - but he didn’t pull away. Once, before he met her, he could never have allowed himself this vulnerability. But, God, he loved her. So he told her the truth, keeping his eyes on his knees. “That’s one of those things I don’t regret, y’know? I told Barry he deserved it, and he did, but…” He trailed off, already lost in the labyrinth of feelings that he shouldn’t wander anywhere near - because Lewis fucking Snart didn’t deserve a single thought from him. 

After a shared, somber moment of quiet, Iris spoke up. “Okay. Then you don’t regret it.” She didn’t stop stroking his upper arm, her touch soft and steadying. “You may not have told us much about your past, but you’ve said enough. If your father was still around, and I walked past him in a dark alley, I’d probably think about killing him too.” 

He sat back against his pillow, staring at her. Wondering if it would be bad timing if he kissed her the way he wanted to.

“But you don’t have to live like that anymore,” she went on. “You can make any choices you want.” She took his chin in her hands, meeting his eyes with a ferocity that he couldn’t look away from. He’d always seen Iris West’s heart of kindness and steel. “Leonard, have you ever thought that this might not be about _good_ _people_ and _bad_ _people? _Maybe there’s just what we each decide to do, every day. The choices we make - to change the world for the better or the worse.”

“Choices,” he echoed, not sure why that word was ringing in his ears. When Iris frowned at his tone, he just shrugged and moved in closer to kiss her again.

She smiled, and leaned in to meet him halfway.

* * *

Iris was, to say the least, frustrated. 

The three of them had been sitting around the cabin for two days now. Leonard said he just needed to stay a little longer, and then he’d get them out of there. “Got a feeling about this,” he said, gazing out of the kitchen window as though something old and far away had his attention. “Something’s coming,” was all he’d say when she pushed for more, cryptic as ever. 

“What something?”

He shook his head vaguely. “Something that’ll explain this shit.”

But by now Iris knew that, where Leonard’s powers were concerned, trusting his instincts was usually a good idea. 

“Besides,” he added, with a smirk that was sad around the edges, “I need to think.”

If the truth was starting to trickle out of Leonard, Barry was keeping his secrets. He was clearly avoiding their mutual partner. That afternoon he’d gone for another run - his third in twenty-four hours - and Iris was getting tired of standing at the bedroom window watching the streak of lightning blink its way around and around the lake. 

Descending the stairs, she saw Leonard standing in the kitchen again, staring out at the mantle of fallen leaves laid across the ground outside. He didn’t look up as he heard her coming - just started talking, in a tone that was a little unfamiliar to her. “I always liked this safe house, y’know? Kept it around for years, till the cops closed in.”

“Why?” She knew by now that, on the rare occasions when Leonard started talking about something real, a little bit of prodding went a long way. Iris didn’t believe lovers and partners had to share everything - and, anyway, that just wasn’t who Leonard was. But she hoped he knew that she’d listen whenever he needed her. Just like he listened to her, steadfast and constant, her quietly supportive partner where Barry was her volatile one.

He shrugged, his eyes still distant at the window. “This was my grandfather’s cabin. He left it to me and Lisa - put it in trust till we were 21. He knew Lewis would have sold it faster than he could throw a punch, so Gramps thought ahead.”

She came to lean against the counter beside him. “Yeah?” Just a _ little _ prodding. These days, he trusted her enough that that was all it took.

“Yeah. Canny guy, that one. Mom always said I got my brains from him and not from Lewis… not like that was hard, mind you.”

Iris smiled. She couldn’t help it - his stories of his grandfather lit up his face on every rare occasion he shared them. “You were close with him, weren’t you?”

Leonard paused, and turned around to face her, reaching out a hand that she grasped in her own across the counter. “While he was around, yeah. He was the one good guy in my life.”

Iris nodded. “Till now.”

The light faded from his eyes as suddenly as it had arrived. It hurt to look at. “Think Barry’s still in my life?”

“I do,” she answered, trying not to hesitate. 

The alternative was unthinkable.

As if Barry had been listening on the other side, that was when the front door creaked open. His eyes flickered between Leonard and Iris in a briefly wary glance. “One of you wanna help me with this?”

He was hauling in bags of food. He could have flashed it all into the kitchen in a fraction of a second, but he was raising eyebrows at Leonard. Who shuffled over to help, quietly heaving up a couple of bags.

“Ooh. What are we cooking?” Iris asked, trying to peek into the bags, while Barry shooed her away.

“I couldn’t decide between chicken salad or burritos, so I got enough ingredients for both.” When they both shot him unimpressed looks, he frowned. “What? I’ll eat the leftovers.”

“We know,” Leonard drawled. He was smiling, just a little.

Barry’s silence was heavy, as he lifted food out of bags far more slowly than he needed to. 

And, all at once, Iris slammed into her limit. “Enough, guys,” she said softly. 

Two pairs of bleak eyes lifted towards her.

“What?” Barry protested weakly. “I didn’t say anything.”

“No, you didn’t, and that’s the problem. You’ve both been avoiding each other for days - don’t argue, Leonard, you _ have _ \- and it ends now.” She caught Leonard’s shifty eye, then glared back at Barry, raising a finger at her headstrong speedster. “Because, in case you’d both forgotten, there’s a third person in this relationship, and she has feelings too.” 

“I don’t—” Barry started, in that tone of his that heralded a stubborn argument. Leonard’s face was threatening no better - she could practically see the storm clouds gathering above his head.

Unless she took control of this shit, it was about to fall apart.

She took a deep breath, ignoring the awkward silences from both her partners, and turned to glare at her husband. “Barry, do you love me?”

The look of near-betrayal on his face was awful, but she wasn’t backing down now. His slow, hurt nod was good enough. 

“Leonard?” Her other partner didn’t look shocked. There was nothing but a brief flicker of sad inevitability across his face. “Same question.”

Glassy eyes blinked up from the floor to look at her. “Yes, Iris.” He glanced at Barry. “I love you both,” he added, in a tone that belied how hard it was for him to say that out loud. She hated forcing that vulnerability out of him, but they both needed to hear this.

“Good,” she said, looking between them. “I love both of you. I love this unexpected, unconventional relationship we stumbled into. I love the way you surprised me with how you felt, Leonard. I love how open you were to this, Barry.” She laid one hand on Leonard’s taut bicep and the other between Barry’s slumped shoulders. “If you two carry on like this, you’re going to destroy this wonderful thing we’ve built between the three of us. And that’s not just gonna hurt the two of you. You’re going to take me down with you.” They were both staring at her now, dark fear shadowing Leonard’s face, guilt etched into Barry’s. “Please,” she said, letting her own fear seep into her voice. _ “Talk _ to each other. For me, and for all of us.”

For a moment, a dazed silence descended like thick fog over the three of them.

Then Len, who had switched his staring to Barry, cleared his throat. “Iris.” He was spinning decisively on his heel to quirk an eyebrow at her. “Do you wanna be here while Barry and I hash this thing out, or would you rather leave us to it?”

Iris looked between them, trying, in spite of everything, to repress a smile. “Did you ever solve an argument without me?”

Snorting, Leonard leaned across to brush a soft kiss against her lips.

She looked up to see Barry with that awed look on his face that he sometimes got, watching his partners together. And then he met Leonard’s eyes, sighed, and turned back to his bags.

“Barry,” he murmured, hints of pain and pleading threaded through his low voice.

“I just don’t know if there’s anything else to say,” Barry said quietly back.

Leonard leaned back against the counter, steel-eyed. “I get it, Barry. You’re a black and white guy. Me, I only believe in different shades of gray…” He was jumping to defensiveness again, his eyes flickering around the room. Iris almost sighed.

Barry was shaking his head. “You don’t get it, Len.”

Leonard’s sharp sigh was frustrated. “So _ explain _ it to me.”

When Barry turned away again, Leonard reached out to grab his hand, his clear desperation a flare of pain in Iris’s heart. “Come somewhere with me.” He nodded at Iris. “Both of you.”

Barry coughed a laugh, looking pointedly at the ingredients he’d been setting out across the kitchen counter.

“Chicken salad,” Leonard decreed. “Bring it with you. We’ll call it a picnic.”

Rolling his eyes, Barry gave him a very cute put-upon smile. “Fine. I need a little while to cook and cool it.” Reaching into a drawer, he waved a pair of scissors at Len. “Make yourself useful - cut the packaging off the chicken.”

Something in Iris relaxed, slowly, as she watched them working and trading fond insults, slipping back into the pattern of back and forth, jibes and snark and warm laughter, that formed the foundation of Leonard and Barry’s relationship. 

They’d been through worse. They could get through this.

* * *

_Back over the rotted bridge I cross_  
_ Open up these graves, let these bodies talk_  
  


By the time they’d finished cooking and got the food out to the lakeside, it was starting to get dark. “Picnic under the _ stars?” _ Iris asked, tugging her coat around her. There was an October chill in the air.

Leonard just smirked at her. “Romantic, wouldn’t you say?”

She shook her head fondly at him. It was ridiculous how much she indulged this man.

They were all quiet for a while after that. Iris watched as the other two laid out the food, apparently feeling guilty enough not to ask her to help. Barry was clearly holding back from flashing the task done in a moment, an awkward, reticent look on his face.

It took everything Iris had not to step in, but she was getting the feeling that they needed to do this themselves.

“Barry,” Leonard finally said, after he’d clearly been caught up in his thoughts for a while, staring up at the stars. “What does it mean to you, to be a hero?”

Barry looked up from his third helping of chicken salad, smiling reflexively. Then that familiar dark shadow crossed his face, the one Iris knew too well - always hiding just beneath his sunshine. He was quiet for a minute, putting his fork down. 

“When I was a kid,” he said at last, “I used to imagine a hero swooping in to save me. Not that the people who did save me weren’t good enough…” He shot a sad little smile at Iris, who just smiled reassuringly back. “But _ really _ save me, like a superhero, you know? I’d have nightmares that the Man in Yellow came back, and then I’d lie awake imagining this faceless hero coming to kill him. He’d get a confession out of him first, and my dad would go free. And sometimes—” Iris watched him swallow, old pain rippling his throat. “Sometimes the hero would get there in time to save her, too. But not often. I guess that seemed a little too unlikely, even in my dreams.”

Leonard was watching Barry, a curious, empathetic look on his face.

Barry lay down, pulling a corner of blanket onto the ground beneath him. “You wanna hear a funny thing?” he said to the stars.

Clearing his throat, Leonard asked, “What?” 

Barry’s voice took on a dreamy quality. “In my head? He was fast - fast enough to catch the Man in Yellow... and he wore a red super-suit.”

Iris leaned back on her hands, waiting for Leonard to take his turn. She was just hoping he’d been listening. That he understood what Barry wanted, and was capable of sharing it.

It was another difficult silence, but finally Leonard coughed again. “When Lisa was little, she would imagine she was secretly a princess.” His tone was too matter-of-fact, as if he was talking about the weather. “She’d pretend that Lewis had kidnapped her, and that her real parents were coming back for her soon. She knew it wasn’t really true - she was never that naive - but just imagining seemed to help. ‘Course, no one ever came for her, and one day she just stopped pretending.” His face darkened. “Around the time I told her I was leaving.”

Barry was playing with a blade of glass. In the dim glow of the light streaming down the hill from the cabin, his eyes looked like he was very far away. 

Leonard just looked devastated, no mask up to hide it from either Iris or Barry - not anymore. His eyes locked with hers as he spoke, as though she was safe. It unlocked something warm in her chest. “I should have been her hero. But I just left her alone with that monster.”

Barry turned his head, catching Len’s eye as though he wanted to say something, but he stayed quiet - wisely, Iris thought.

With a little, self-deprecating twitch of his eyebrows, Leonard kept talking. “And then I did it again, and again, and again. That wasn’t the only time I abandoned Lisa when I should have been there for her. And I gave up on Mick time after fucking time. After the fire… Killing a man wasn’t the most terrible thing I did that day, Barry.” At Barry’s scowl, he just shook his head. “I know - but all I remember is how it felt to drive away and leave Mick there, no clue if he was alive or dead, and pretending I didn’t care. ‘Cause I didn’t know how to do anything else.”

“Len—” Barry started.

He held up a hand. “No, I— if I stop now…” At Barry’s nod, Leonard quirked a little smile at him. “You were your own hero, Barry. You did impossible things when no one thought you could. That’s incredible. Me… I couldn’t even protect the few people who had faith in me.” He raised dramatic eyebrows at the ground, a familiar sign that he was sliding into his Captain Cold persona, just a little. “So, I got good at being the bad guy.” He coughed a laugh. “That, I knew how to do - had some _great_ role models. Started out trying to prove to Lewis that I could be better than the fuck-up he said I was. Wound up learning how to be the best bad guy there was. And by the end, that was all I wanted to be.” He shook his head again. “Barry, if you’re waiting for me to be a hero… stop. I’m just gonna keep letting you down.”

Barry sat up slowly. His intense gaze at Leonard was giving Iris chills. “Then fuck it,” he hissed, so vehemently that Iris pulled back to look at him.

Len did much the same. “Huh?”

“Fuck being a hero!” Barry scowled at him. “Who said that was what you had to be?”

Staring at him, Leonard started, “You—”

“I did _not.” _Barry was looking at Leonard like he was everything, and Iris held back a smile. “I said there was good in you. And ever since, I’ve never once wondered if I was wrong. What you do about that, what it looks like… that’s up to you to decide.” He took a breath, and his voice dropped. “No one’s writing your story but you, Len. Didn’t the Oculus tell you that?”

Leonard’s face was as open as Iris had ever seen it - it hurt a little to look at. Wide-eyed, he whispered, “I don’t know what to do without a script, Barry.”

Barry’s lopsided smile at him was warm. “Neither did— neither do I.” He tilted his head at Iris. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

She choked a laugh, only realising she’d barely said a word in twenty minutes when her reply came out hoarse. “God, no.” She reached out two hands, one to her left, one to her right. Two warm hands, one gloved and one not, grasped back.

“Then we write our own story,” Barry said firmly.

Iris closed her eyes and squeezed both their hands. 

They were going to be okay.

The moment didn’t last long. Leonard let go, jumping to his feet, staring up at the night sky. “What the _ hell _ is that?”

Barry got up more slowly, with a hand on Leonard’s shoulder to steady himself. “I don’t know…”

Iris clambered to her feet, shaking her head in the direction they were both looking. She could only see stars, but anxiety was swirling in her gut. “What is it, guys? What are you seeing?”

“Well,” Leonard drawled, like he needed to reassure himself, “at least you can see it, Barry, or I’d really think I’d lost it this time. It’s a blue, naked giant in the sky, Iris.”

She blinked. “You’re serious?”

“_Utterly_.”

All doubt dropped away as she covered her ears to keep out the distorted voice, booming out of nowhere. “You do not belong here, Leonard Snart. You are out of Time.”

“Run,” Barry said, grabbing Iris’s hand…

…As Leonard took his. “I’ve got a much more _ timely _ idea,” he quipped, and the world shimmed out of focus, a dark STAR Labs resolving around them in its place.

Cisco nearly fell off his chair, grabbing the console just in time to keep himself upright. “Dudes, what the hell? It’s 11pm, give a guy a warn—”

“Call Mick,” Leonard barked at him. “Get him here. Or any of the Legends who’ll come.”

“Leonard?” Iris questioned behind him, with a hand on his arm. 

He swung around to face her. “I get it, finally.” His eyes glowed blue, just for a moment. “Think someone’s aiming to destroy the Oculus. And they’re going to use me to do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Iris/Len smut starts with “He grinned and moved in to kiss her again...” and ends with “Afterwards, as she lay next to him with his arm tight around her.” 
> 
> As I mentioned before, I’m going on a short hiatus now, as life/work/health have been kicking my arse. I hope I won’t be gone more than a few weeks! I know where this fic is going - I just have to get healthy enough, and find time enough, to write the rest of it. Thanks so much to everyone who’s been reading and leaving such lovely comments, and see you very soon. :)


	7. Others

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song for part 2 of this fic: [Light On](https://youtu.be/MSFjYe54uv4), Maggie Rogers

_ One, two, three, four _

(don’t step on a crack)

“You’re pacing, Len.”

_Four, three, two, one_

(or you’ll break your back)

“I’m aware, thanks, Barry.”

He turned on his heel, rattling back down the length of the speed lab. Iris, sitting on the raised edge of the running track, lifted her eyebrows at him. He raised his at her in return, then went back to listening.

There was a restless urgency buzzing inside him, and he was trying to push it down so he could follow the lines spinning out across the web of Time.

“A blue giant.” Cisco said, raising his voice over the noise filling the lab.

Len paused mid-stride, glancing up at him. “Yes.”

_ “A blue giant.” _

“You seem to be having some trouble with this concept, Ramon,” Len shot back, in the driest voice he could manage.

Barry snickered, then shrugged apologetically at Cisco.

With a gaggle of arguing Legends taking over one side of the whiteboard, and a good chunk of Team Flash at the other end, the noise in the speed lab wasn’t exactly helping Len to focus. Barry kept pausing in his calculations to shoot warning looks at Legends. There was one less team member in the room than usual, at least - Caitlin had retreated to the medical lab to compare her latest scan of Len's brain with past test results.

Finding himself at the whiteboard, Len tapped a finger on the board where Cisco had helpfully written _ blue giant!!! _in bubble writing and underlined it twice. “What does he want?” 

Iris frowned. “I thought you already knew that.”

Irritation, flaring in his chest. Breathing, slow and steady. The black lines of writing, in and out of focus.

The black lines of the web of Time, in and out of focus.

He breathed through it, working on keeping his control. None of this was Iris’s fault, “Got a hunch, that’s all. Ain’t like I’m a prophet.” He nodded at Cisco. “It ain’t even like I’m _ him. _Get glimpses of the past and future. Nothing more concrete than that.” 

Barry finally looked up from his equations, blinking away a haze of hyperfocus. “And your hunch is that he wants to destroy the Oculus?”

Half a dozen suddenly-silent faces were looking at Len, rapt and thirsty for knowledge, like he had the answer. He didn’t. 

He turned away from the board, ignoring the feel of Iris’s eyes drilling into the back of his head as he took off back down the lab.

_One, two, three, four_

(don’t step on a crack)

“Okay. Who has enough power to mess with Time like this guy has been? And hijacking my powers, and moving me around like a damn chess piece…” He could hear his voice dropping into a useless mutter, but he couldn’t spare a moment to be annoyed with himself. 

“You sound very sure that’s what he’s doing,” Iris said, as quietly and carefully critical as ever. He looked up, meeting her eyes. Iris was the person he trusted most to see the big picture... but right now he wanted answers, not questions.

He stepped away. “Who is he?” he reiterated.

“The Monitor?” Barry suggested. “Or someone who works for him...”

Iris shook her head. “He doesn’t seem the type to operate in the shadows like this - not now that we know who he is.”

Cisco had stepped around to the right side of the board, and was frowning at it. “Last time I talked to Harry, he mentioned someone called Darkseid. The guy’s got a vendetta against people he calls _ new gods. _ Could be him, or someone else who’s pissed at powerful types...”

Len couldn’t stop himself from blinking at him like a complete schmuck. This meta shit got weirder every day. “There are new gods?”

“Yeah,” Cisco said distantly, frowning, maybe with the effort of a vibe. “Harry wasn’t sure, but he thought this Darkseid - _ stupid _ name, B-T-dub - meant the really powerful metas, the ones running around the multiverse being basically omnipotent. Superman, Wonder Woman…” He glanced at Barry, but didn’t add him to the list.

“Wonder Woman? Huh.” Len caught sight of Barry’s face and raised a crooked finger at him. “Don’t say it.”

Barry’s grin just got wider - the little shit. “Len likes her.”

Cisco slapped Len on the arm. “Good taste in the ladies department, dude!”

Zari paused mid-argument with Ray. Other than himself, she was the only person Len knew who could make a _ look _ sarcastic. “No way. Snart has a crush? Well, at least she’s cute.”

Aiming what he hoped was a _chilling_ stare at the place on his arm where Cisco had slapped him, Len said, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t just do that, Ramon. And she’s not _ cute_, Z - she’s powerful enough to kill us both before we could reach for a gun or a totem, so shut it.”

She raised her eyebrows and went right back to arguing with Ray. Len barely considered apologising for snapping. Why weren’t any of them taking this threat seriously? 

As the Boy Scout raised his hand, with that soppy look on his face that signalled he was about to make a ridiculous joke, Len sighed loudly. “There isn’t time for any of this screwing around,” he growled. “Now shut up - I’m trying to think.”

The noise died down to a slightly less headache-inducing level.

_ One, two, three, four _

(don’t step on a crack)

“I don’t think Darkseid’s a blue giant, though...” Cisco’s eyes were unfocused again, and he was shaking his head. “Okay.” He slid, unconcerned, out of his chair. “I think I’m gonna call the aforementioned Harry.”

(or you’ll break your back) 

Caitlin was striding back into the room, raising her eyebrows as she almost walked into Len. “You do that, Cisco,” she said, catching Len by the arm - he tried not to flinch, unprepared as he was for that. “I need Leonard in another MRI—” 

(or he’ll break your back)

Chewing his pen, Barry didn’t even wait for her to finish. “Okay, but I really think we should start by looking back over Len’s trips to—”

Mick rolled his eyes. “Everyone shut up and let Snart figure this—” 

(or he’ll break you)

(he’ll break them)

(he’ll take them)

“Everyone SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Len heard himself roar, spinning around to give them all his best Captain Cold death glare. “Not a single one of you is taking this seriously! Do you not understand that I think this blue fucker is threatening not only all of our lives, but _Time itself_?”

The general stunned silence was broken by a narrow-eyed Mick, reaching out to knock a marker off of the shelf it was resting on. _ Asshole. _

(he’ll take them all)

When did Len start feeling like he couldn’t breathe? 

Iris stood up, marching over to lay a hand on Len’s shoulder. Meeting his eyes with the steel in her own, she said “Enough, guys,” in that quiet, steady way of hers. “This chaos isn’t working. We need to look at this systematically.” 

And Len breathed out. 

He managed a smile at her, fighting a weird sense of shame at the wave of reassurance rushing over him. It was a point of hard-won pride for Len that he’d been self-sufficient all his life, ever since he crawled his way out from under his father’s tyrannical control. For a long time since, _he_ was all the leader he needed... Until her. There was no one else he would trust to take the reins in a mess like this. 

Swallowing down the panic, he forced himself to focus on Iris. And then on Barry, watching him with worried eyes from the whiteboard. Nothing else mattered except them.

Her lips twitched back at him before she launched back into a flurry of orders. “I’m splitting us into teams. Take a lab each. Leonard, you’ll rotate between the teams. Go with Caitlin first, so she can get you into an MRI. Team Flash, I need you to look at all the angles you can think of. List any supervillains this could be, from any Earth. Cisco, go with the Legends - see what you can figure out from the time travel theory. I want Sara, Caitlin, Barry and Len reporting back to me tomorrow.” She raised a finger in warning, letting it roam around the lab. “And I want all of you to get some rest overnight.” Her voice shook so slightly that only Len or Barry would have noticed, as she added, “Guys, Leonard’s life might depend on us figuring this out. So I know you’ll take this as seriously as I would.” There was thick silence for a moment, before she added, “Well? Tick tock, people. Get on with it.”

Len looked up in time to see Barry gazing at Iris with one of _ those _ smiles. As the teams filtered out, he smothered his own grin and the sudden desire to yell, _ Hey, assholes, that’s my girlfriend! _in the middle of the Cortex. Iris would have pretended not to appreciate that.

But as he passed her, he whispered, “Damn, you’re hot,” in a low drawl in her ear. When she winked at him, he risked adding, “Fancy a quickie in Storage Closet B?”

She rolled her eyes nearly out of her head. _ “Timing, _Leonard. Possible life or death situation, remember?”

He shot back what he hoped was a very cute grin, and she muttered under her breath and shoved him out of the Cortex door.

* * *

He was lying on a beach under a thick blanket of stars.

It was damp, and there was sand between his toes.

(are you even listening?)

He turned to the right and found himself blinking at... himself. “You again?”

(I told you. there’s a pattern to it)

“You saying you’re trying to tell me something important?”

An eye roll.

(finally, he gets there)

The other him raised a hand and pointed at Barry and Iris, moon-bathing in the dark, a few feet away from him. Iris was gorgeous in an Oculus-blue swimsuit. Barry was wearing a red silk jacket over his trunks, leaning up on one arm, his face radiant with love for her. 

(they’ve got no idea)

Len shook his head. “They do now. I took them back with me. They saw.”

(a good start. not enough.)

Across the beach, Iris sat up, removing her sunglasses. “Have you seen Leonard?”

Barry yawned. “Who?”

She slapped him playfully on the shoulder. “Oh, _ you. _Leonard!”

Pursing his lips, Barry asked, “The bad guy or the good guy?”

Iris shrugged. “Neither?”

Len held back a wince.

A science textbook had appeared in Barry’s hands. He was thumbing through it, frowning. “We’re still missing something. We haven’t taken enough factors into account. We need to find the others.”

“As numerous as the stars in the sky.” Iris was lying back, looking upwards. “Maybe it’s not just about the pattern. Maybe it’s about the _ choices.” _

The other him tilted his head at Len.

(there are no strings on you)

“Others...” Len mused. “What others?” He raised his voice. “Guys.” Barry and Iris smiled at him, then went right back to talking.

Len sighed and turned back to the other him. “Who are you?”

(still not the right question)

“Then what is?”

The other him smiled. 

(who are _ you?) _

He woke to silence and gray light. Taking a few quick, deep breaths, he rolled over to an already-awake Barry. “Hey,” Barry murmured, reaching out to run his hand over Len’s head, giving him a reassuring smile.

He tried to smile back, leaning into Barry’s touch. It didn’t matter how much Len and his speedster clashed - how much their broken edges, too alike and too different, scraped against each other’s. They were here for each other, and that was all that mattered. “Morning.” 

Said speedster was now watching him warily. “You okay?”

Len shrugged. “Guess so. More weird dreams.”

Barry’s hand stopped moving. Warm on Len’s head, thrumming with a pulse like lightning. “And?” he urged, impatient as ever.

Len let the images from his dream wash back over him. “Less of the pain and suffering. More of the mystery. That’s probably good, right?” 

“I guess?” Barry said doubtfully. “Do you think these dreams are significant?”

“Guys,” interrupted Iris’s breathless voice from the door. “I just had a call from STAR Labs - they need us to get back there. Leonard…” 

Len’s stomach dropped as he looked up to see his own fear reflected in his girlfriend’s eyes. “Yeah?”

“Cisco’s had an encounter with your blue giant.”

* * *

Vibe was slumped against a wall of the Cortex, his jaw tense and his eyes hung heavy with shadows. Len had never really liked the guy, but he felt for him now. The guy had been vibing _ Len’s _ enemy, after all.

Harry Wells’s sour face was blown up in HD on the screen on the wall, thanks to tech created by the poor bastard slumped on the floor next to Len. Wells was looking a little uncomfortable with the rapid-fire questions from the multiple-team nerd squad. “The blue giant, as you so eloquently call him, Ramon, is a metahuman. Or, he was. He used to run with a team on my Earth - if you could really call it a team - of mavericks and antiheroes. He’s evolved into something else now. Something of an inter-dimensional superbeing.”

“Well, that’s not terrifying,” Len said - it came out as more of a drawl than he intended. “Got a name?” 

“I’ve heard a few different names. _ Manhattan _ is the one I hear most often - apparently in recognition of his nuclear origins.”

“Shitty name,” came the murmured comment from the floor beside him. Len managed to refrain from pointing out that this was the second time in twenty-four hours that Cisco had made that kind of comment.

Barry shook his head. “Never heard of him.”

“It’s like you don’t even understand the concept of multiple earths yet, Allen,” Wells quipped, getting an eye-roll from Cisco in return.

Leaning with his back against the wall, his hands braced against it behind him in an effort to stop himself from pacing again, Len reminded himself to breathe. “So why the interest in me?” 

Harry’s face tightened in a familiar look - he was lost in thought. It was odd, but Len had found himself missing the scientist-turned-artist since he had returned to his own Earth, feeling the absence of his quiet, grouchy presence around STAR Labs. Len barely had a moment to wonder when Team Flash had become his _ friends, _before Wells answered. “He’s got precedent. He’s expressed concern about rising numbers of metahumans across the multiverse. But why he’s focusing that on you, Snart…” He shrugged blankly.

(because there will be more of us. as numerous as the stars in the sky)

Something was buzzing insistently at the back of Len’s head like... something he needed to listen to. 

A tired cough pulled his attention to Cisco. He was staring up at the whiteboard, his face pinched. “Hey,” Iris said, dropping down into a crouch beside him. “You okay? What happened?”

He just shrugged in reply. “We were working on the temporal physics in my lab. Zari and Ray had this idea about the temporal constant in our equations, and Zari said she could set up a simulation to test the theory…” He shuddered. “So I vibed it.”

Over Len’s intake of breath, Iris asked, “You vibed _ what, _exactly?”

Cisco shared a look with Len. “I can vibe time travelers - go where their powers take them. I figured if we followed the path of this constant, it could put me in touch with whatever’s behind it. The simulation gave me a way in.”

“It took you to our blue friend.”

Cisco nodded at Len, and his gaze went distant again. “He didn’t see me, but I know how to find him. I think he’s linked to you. Or... watching you, maybe.” Painfully slowly, he stood up, pointing at another equation Barry was scribbling. “But I don’t think it’s just about you, Snart. I think there are other factors in play.” 

“Other factors...” Len echoed, the words resonating in his head.

Iris stood up, turning to look at him. “What?”

“In my dream, Barry said he hadn’t taken enough factors into account.” He stepped in behind Barry, sliding one arm around him and pointing at the whiteboard, at the symbol that the nerd squad had been using to represent Len. “Barry, what would you put into the equation if there were other time travelers - now, or coming in the future - who we hadn’t identified yet?”

Barry didn’t stop writing. “An X, I guess. Why?”

The ringing in Len’s ears sounded like the Oculus when it blew the Vanishing Point to hell. 

_ Then _ Barry stopped, turning to look at him. “Len? What do you know?”

Cisco raised his eyebrows. “Share with the class, Snart.”

He opened his mouth to make some deflecting comment or other. But Iris was watching him quietly, thoughtfully. She raised a hand. “No, don’t think, Leonard - just tap into your powers and answer.”

Len closed his eyes. 

(are you even listening to me?)

He opened his eyes. 

”Shit,” he said, and stumbled forward. Direct downloads from the Oculus were a little overwhelming, even now.

Barry’s hand was tight on his arm before Len registered it. “What? What is it?” he asked, his face crumpling in worry.

There were times, if Len was being uncharacteristically honest, when he wondered if he was closer to Iris than to Barry. It was Iris who he waited up for, on nights when she was working long hours, ready with a glass of wine when she came through the door, so they could talk under a safe blanket of darkness. It was for Iris that Len got up early to cook pancakes, listening to her worries about the day to come - just happy to have an hour in her presence, even at 6 in the morning. And it was Iris who he surprised with donuts at lunchtime when he hadn’t seen her for a week, schlepping to the Citizen offices just for a moment in her company, always finding her eager to see him. She was the most captivating woman he’d even met, and he was more in love with her than he knew how to say. But she loved him in that quiet way of hers that was never unbearable. 

And then there was Barry. Looking at him now, into his deep, worried gaze, it hit Len like a derailed train. He didn’t know how to be loved the way Barry loved him. It was overwhelming, that intensity. That place where their sharp, broken edges cut into each other.

Len pulled himself back from cursing a past that had fucked him up this bad. _ No more shitty excuses. Only making things work, _now.

He forced his focus back onto the situation they were in. “I just have instincts here - no real information. But I think we need to look for other players. Other... children of the Oculus.” At Barry’s incredulous face, he clarified, “People like me.”

“There are gonna be _ more _ of you? More time travelers?”

Before he could answer, a shudder ran through him - the ringing in his ears was getting louder. There was a giant pulling on the web of Time. Trying to rip it apart. “He’s coming for me. Manhattan, or whoever he is.” He glanced at Cisco. “I need to talk to him. See if we can make him change his mind.” He turned back to Wells on the screen, whose face was lined with worry. “Will he listen?”

Wells shrugged. “He might. Everything I know about him is rumour, but... he was human once. Try it.”

Len looked back at Iris, who nodded slowly. Then he put a hand on Cisco’s shoulder - the kid blinked at him in obvious surprise. “Ramo— Cisco. If you don’t want to do this, I get it.”

Cisco smiled as if it wasn’t even a question, a surprising camaraderie in his eyes. “I’m good, man. We vibe him again. Not directly,” he added, holding up a hand as Barry and Iris started to object, in unison. “I vibe you, Snart, and we piggy-back onto Blue Giant’s consciousness that way.”

Iris had her arms folded. “Won’t that just make you pass out again?” 

“I didn’t _ pass out,” _Cisco said with an irritated eye roll. “And anyway, this is an emergency. How long d’you think you’ve got till he finds you, Snart?”

Len didn’t answer. 

Barry still had a hand on Len’s arm, but his eyes were on Cisco. “You really want to do this?” At a shrug and a nod from Cisco, he turned back to Len. “And you?”

“I’m getting tired of this mess. C’mon, Vibe. Let’s kick his ass.”

Snorting, Cisco held out a hand. Removing his right glove, Len grasped it.

* * *

(dark water)

(dragged under)

(drowning)

He gasped for breath. They’d come through a portal, not water.

His chest was on fire anyway.

(he’s seven years old, and his father is holding him under—)

“Oh, _ fuck you, _timeline,” he snapped under his breath. He was beyond caring whether he really was getting lost in his own timeline, or if that was just a standard-issue intrusive memory. At this rate, he was going to need to step up his therapy to weekly sessions soon. 

He tightened his grip around Vibe’s wrist - the darkness was fighting him. “Where are we?”

“Nowhere,” came Cisco’s voice from somewhere very far away. “Someone’s mind? Manhattan’s?” 

Len didn’t have the chance to say anything else. Whatever they were standing on, it was shaking, shuddering with the approach of something colossal.

The blue giant brought his own dim light with him as he approached - just enough that they could see him. If _him_ was an appropriate pronoun - it would do till Len heard otherwise. The naked giant’s all-too-obvious penis wasn’t actually relevant to that question.

“Fee, fi, fo, fum?” Len murmured, ignoring Cisco’s snort beside him. 

“Yes. You do not deserve it,” Manhattan said impassively, as if answering a question Len hadn’t asked yet.

Blinking, Len tried not to follow down the knotted mess of timelines that stretched out in front of the giant. He could far too easily get lost in it forever. He focused on _ right now. _

Caitlin had taught him a grounding technique to keep him in the present. It involved concentrating on how he was feeling, which wasn’t exactly his idea of fun, but it mostly helped. Images were running through his head. Barry. Iris. Team Flash. The Legends. His friends. _ Oh, right. _Fear - that was what he was feeling. Not for himself, but for all the people he loved. Who could die - would never have existed, maybe - if the Oculus blew. 

He glared at the giant, which was probably as useless as an ant glaring at an aardvark. “You figuring I should be afraid of you, Papa Smurf?”

“No. Fear is irrelevant,” the blue guy said, watching him with eyes that were almost curious.

Len would have rolled his eyes at the sci-fi cliche, if anyone could see him. “Is it now, Locutus of Borg?”

“Yes. Reality is all that there is.”

“And which _reality _ are you objecting to, hmm?”

The giant tilted his head, a gesture that Len immediately hated. “The reality is that Time is destablized when you move through it - when you change it. I will stop you.”

_ When you change it... _

“You do want to destroy the Oculus,” Len snarled at the smurf.

“Is that what you think?” The smurf regarded him back with huge, empty eyes. Len wondered if Harry was right, that the guy had been human once. If he’d had an anchor, someone he loved, when something set him loose in Time. A Barry, or an Iris. 

If Len could have become this guy, disconnected and inhuman, without them.

In the present, the giant was still pontificating at him. “The Oculus should never have shared its power. Not with you, and not with those who will come after you.”

Len blinked. But given that he could feel Ramon starting to shake with the effort of keeping them on this plane of existence, he wasn’t going to waste time with irrelevant questions like _ who are those who will come after me? _

Instead, he went for the more immediate question. “What have I done with these powers that’s so terrible? How’d I get your attention so bad that you want me out of the picture?”

Manhattan’s face betrayed just a hint of emotion. Disappointment. “You altered Time. Men like you should not have this kind of power, Leonard Snart.”

He ignored a suffocating wave of guilt. This was _ not _ his fault. “Is that so?”

“Yes. You do not deserve it.”

And Len... didn’t have an answer for that. The giant wasn’t wrong.

The ground - such as it was - was shaking beneath them again. Vibe tugged at Len’s arm. _ Gotta go, before he follows us out, _ said a voice in his head. 

Len didn’t ask how Vibe did that. He turned and got ready to run.

But he couldn’t resist turning back once more, ignoring another tug on his arm. 

Len had been a big bad once. He knew how often the evil guys could be persuaded to show off their nefarious schemes. You just had to flatter them enough, and off they’d go, giving the game away. “Manhattan’s the name, right?” The merest hint of a nod. “Manhattan. I can see you’re a powerful guy. Clearly got your own connections to Time. What do you want from me? Maybe we can make a deal, hmm?”

Was that the hint of a smile? “Always asking the wrong questions, Leonard Snart. But I will tell you what you want to know, since you and your anchors are so slow to figure it out for yourselves. You will stop using this stolen power.” Just for a moment, Manhattan’s face tightened into a chilling sneer worthy of Lewis Snart. “If you travel in Time once more, I will end your anchors, who keep you in this reality.”

_ No. _“You’d harm humans?”

With that impassive look back on his face, Manhattan blinked as though the idea was anathema to him. “Not the woman. She has done nothing.” He frowned hard, a look that reminded Len of his own moments of tapping into the Oculus. “I see it now, in the web of Time. All it will take to remove you from this reality is one anchor. The speedster. He, too, has power that he did not earn.”

(Barry...)

“This is your one warning, Leonard Snart. Travel in time again and he will be removed from the timeline. He will never have existed.”

_ We’re leaving now, Snart, _echoed Vibe’s voice in his head. Len held on tight as he was pulled away through thick darkness, until the watery shapes and sounds of STAR Labs resolved around him.

_Would you believe me now if I told you I got caught up in a wave?  
Almost gave it away_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not beta read, but hopefully I didn’t make any glaring errors...
> 
> Hello! I’m back, but can’t guarantee weekly updates - but I’ll be aiming for fortnightly!


	8. Meena

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They have one last option left... if she’ll help them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Since a couple of people said they didn’t remember her - Meena/Fast Track was introduced [in Chapter 4](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20168803/chapters/48596618), where I gave her a backstory I made up for this fic. She’s only VERY loosely inspired by the comics version of Fast Track, so you don’t need to know the comics version at all.]

“No,” Iris choked out.

They weren’t leaving her.

Her eyes were fixed on Leonard, pacing back and forth across the room.

Barry’s arms were tight around her, as they lay curled into each other on the couch in the STAR Labs.

Leonard stopped, leaning against the bar, his eyes focused on the ceiling. “This is the only way to hide me,” he said a little robotically. “Or I’m gone for good, as soon I go spinning through Time - and so is Barry.” He glanced back at her. “You’ll be safe here. As soon as we leave, he’s gonna focus on trying to find us.”

“You don’t know that,” she countered. She could tell she was pouting like a child, and she didn’t care.

_They weren’t leaving her._

She pulled away from Barry, meeting his bright eyes. “Take me with you.”

Green eyes got wider. “Iris... I’ve never taken a non-speedster into the Speed Force.” He nodded at Leonard. “I’m not even sure I can get _him_ in safely. I’m not risking you too.”

Against the couch seat, she slammed her hands down on either side of her.

Leonard visibly flinched.

“Please,” she croaked, no longer fighting the tears. Anger flared, mostly at herself. It had been a long time since she’d cried. She wasn’t going to be _left_ here, alone, with nothing to do about it but _cry_. “You’re not leaving me.”

Leonard was on his knees in front of her. “What do you want us to do?”

“Take me with you.” She locked her hand into his.

Beside her, Barry was shaking his head frantically. “I told you - I can’t. I don’t even know how to get _Len _into the Speed Force, Iris!”

Leonard’s eyes drooped, and closed. _“You do,”_ he said in the strangest voice Iris had ever heard from him. _“You just need the right speedster.”_

Barry reeled back. 

Iris felt her eyebrows go up. “Uh... What was that?”

He shrugged, opening his eyes again. “The voice that talks to me sometimes, in the back of my head.” He let out a snort. “Oh, stop staring, guys. I’m no crazier than usual.” He stretched out along the floor like a cat, without letting go of her hand. “I used to think it was the Oculus talking to me, but... Doesn’t matter. It usually knows what it’s talking about.”

With Iris’s other hand in his, Barry was staring at Leonard. “Since when do you know how to get people into the Speed Force?”

Leonard shrugged again, a half-rise of one shoulder clearly designed to irritate one or both of them. “You said it yourself, Barry. The Speed Force and the Oculus are kinda like cousins. We’re banking on it letting me in, for that reason.”

Barry’s eyes were still wide and wild. “_We?_” 

“Me and the Oculus,” Leonard clarified, like that was obvious.

“So what do you mean, we need the right speedster?”

Iris stood up abruptly, pulling out of both of their holds. “Stop talking like I’m not here.” 

“We weren’t—” Barry started, but a look from her shut him up. 

She strode away to the bar, sitting down on a stool. “We’re going to approach this like a mission,” she declared, shifting into her team leader voice. No one needed to know it was mostly to keep her from crying again. “Leonard. Answer his question.”

There was a stain on the bar, where coffee or cola had seeped into the wood, dripping in long, dark trails off the side of the counter and onto the tile floor, ruining everything. Iris kept her eyes fixed on it. She couldn’t look at either of her lovers.

Not now. Not when they were going to do this without her.

“We need a portal that’ll let me in...” Leonard was murmuring behind her.

“The Speed Force itself would need to give us that,” came Barry’s voice, a long, cold moment later.

“Not if we go in via the Negative Speed Force.”

An appalled cough from Barry. “If we _what?”_

Iris turned around on her stool to face them both, but she didn’t meet Leonard’s eyes, or Barry’s. “Fast Track?” she asked, and Leonard nodded. “You think you can get her to help us?”

His eyes narrowed at a distant point. Iris wondered what he was seeing, in his timeline or in Meena Dhawan’s. “Yes,” he said softly. “I think I can.”

She nodded. “Then go. Find out if she’ll help. Quickly.”

She let them go.

She let them go, and her heart was breaking.

* * *

Len stopped outside the old tenement building. Old nerves were jangling through his restless hands and feet. He knew this part of Central City too well, and it wasn’t exactly a _nice _neighbourhood. Family turf wars had been playing out on these streets a long time - Len remembered running errands for the Santinis not far from here, when he was no more than twelve years old. That thought had him tightening his hand around the cold gun. There weren’t many Family types left who remembered their old grudge with Captain Cold, but Len still kept a wary eye out, just in case.

Meena Dhawan’s apartment was on the top floor, and this didn’t look like the kind of building that had an elevator. Pushing open the graffiti-daubed metal door, he sighed at the broken rail and stairs with missing wooden panels. He started his climb, pretending he wasn’t struggling his way up the four flights. _You’re a time traveler,_ he told himself, scowling at his aching knees. _If anyone can choose to be as young as they feel, it’s you, _he lied blatantly.

Outside Meena’s door, he paused. He had no idea what he was doing here. Other than the vague, desperate hope that he could appeal to her, villain to villain, he was just working off instinct. 

Sighing, he reached out and knocked. 

The door flew open. “Didn’t I tell you not to—”

Meena Dhawan stopped talking, and blinked at him.

“Hello, Fast Track,” he drawled, taking just a little bit of advantage of her confusion. He leaned against the wall, just far enough away that she wouldn’t feel threatened.

“Who the hell are you?” she snapped, and then her eyes narrowed. “I know you.” She clicked her fingers near her head a few times, then pointed at him. “Team Flash... Snart, right? You’re Captain Cold.”

“People never recognize me without the parka,” he said, adding a folorn sigh for effect. “There’s something I’d like to propose.” He tilted his head from side to side. “It’s in both our interests. Maybe we can do a deal, hmm?”

She was glaring now. “Why should I let someone from Team Flash into my place, after the way you’ve treated me?”

This wasn’t going well. She was skulking back inside, her hand on the door, probably getting ready to slam in it his face. Then, as she moved her dark hair away from her face, Len paused.

She was so much thinner than the gleeful, brand new young meta he’d met when Team Flash had dragged her into STAR Labs a couple of months ago. Granted, Len didn’t know her well. But he knew the gaunt look of someone who hadn’t eaten properly for a while. The dark circles under her eyes weren’t telling a great story either.

(she’s no more a villain than you)

He let a little of his desperation show on his face. “Ms. Dhawan, I need your help. If you know anything about me, you can probably figure out that I don’t ask for that easily.” All trace of a drawl had disappeared from his voice. Her eyes were narrowing, but she was listening. Len lifted his open hands towards her. “I’m in trouble, and so is someone I... love. Don’t ask me how I know you can help. My powers are weird like that. But... please. I need you.”

Well, damn, if that wasn’t one of the toughest speeches he’d had to drag out of himself in a long time. Meena was staring at him, narrow-eyed, making him stand there through the longest pause of Len’s life.

“Okay,” she said, after about an eon, and opened the door.

The apartment wasn’t as much of a mess as he’d expected. What he could see of it was tiny, with a threadbare couch crammed into the main room, along with a bookshelf piled high with books. Len spotted an introduction to engineering that he’d checked out of the library once, back when he’d been trying to learn how to upgrade the cold gun. 

“I’d offer you coffee,” Fast Track said, as she gestured for Len to sit down, “but I’ve been out for, like, a week.”

It was the kind of self-deprecating, defensive humor that Len spent most of his life engaging in. He refrained from pointing it out - just nodded.

“So,” she said, folding her legs under her on the couch, “are you gonna tell me what you want?” She almost sounded curious now, but with a shield of defensiveness beneath that.

And Len suddenly had no idea how to do this. He’d come here without a plan, and he wasn’t exactly a people person.

But, as a bass beat vibrated through the soles of his feet, as raised voices drifted up from somewhere beneath them, he stopped, and closed his eyes.

_Help me._

(listen.)

Rats scratching in the walls.

A child crying, on and on - hungry or afraid.

The noise of an argument - no, a fight - between a man and a woman, rising from the depths of the building. Hidden just deep enough in the darkness that the police wouldn’t come if the woman called them. But she knew that, and she wouldn’t.

All the sounds of quiet desperation that he still remembered. There were no rats in the nice, middle-class apartment he lived in now. But the way this girl was living — this, he knew.

He took a breath, and made a show of looking around the apartment. “Nice place. A lot nicer than where I ended up for a few months after I came back from the dead,” he added conversationally.

That got a curious smile out of her. “I heard about that,” she admitted. “You were a supervillain, before, right?”

“Something like that.”

“And then you die, and then you come back, and out of nowhere you’re suddenly a—”

He winced. _“Don’t_ say it.”

She grinned. “Fine. One of the good guys.” Clasping her hands around her knees, she asked, “What happened?” 

He tilted his head. “People change.”

“Uh-huh,” she said doubtfully.

Admitting something he never would have, just months ago, he found himself adding, “They do when people love them enough.” 

Something very sad crossed Meena’s face, and Len very carefully didn’t comment on it.

Instead, he just said, “And now someone’s threatening to take those people away from me.”

She leaned back, considering him. “And that’s got what, exactly, to do with me?”

He took a split-second decision - a risk to let himself be vulnerable with this stranger who could hold the key to his future. ”Listen, Ms. Dhawan. I’m in a weird situation - my whole life is weird, but it just got weirder. A very powerful being wants to hurt me and someone I care about. I need your help, but—” He glanced around. “I can’t explain here. I need you to meet someone, and I’m not risking you by bringing them to your home. But, trust me. We need you.” 

She was giving him a very familiar skeptical look. “What’s in it for me?”

Ah, yes. That old chestnut. He’d all but asked Barry that question, once, and then taken what he wanted. The memory stung a little, made strange by the passing of time and the way he felt about Barry now. Maybe Meena was more trustworthy than Len had been, but he wasn’t about to be as naive as Barry had been with him.

He folded his arms. “What do you want?”

She blinked silently at him, as if no one had asked her that question in a long time. Len let the silence swell, giving her space. 

“I want help,” she declared, finally. 

That, he had not expected. “With what?” 

She threw up her hand, gesturing at the tiny apartment. “I had things to live for once,” she said, her tone turning vicious. “A job, friends, family... I was even studying to be an engineer.” He didn’t break their shared gaze, and she carried on, maybe only to fill the silence. “Do you know what it’s like to lose everything because your powers are running out of control?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

There was a beat, and then she just said, “Well then.”

He nodded slowly. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He saw the moment she crumbled. When he _won_. And he didn’t know how he felt about that. “Fine,” she muttered. “Where do you and this other person want to have this chat?”

He shrugged, testing a theory. “Somewhere with food? I’m buying.”

Her eyes widened. _Bingo._

“I’m a vegetarian,” she said. “Hindu,” she added defensively, in a tone that strongly suggested she’d had to explain herself on this issue before.

Len had a flash of memory from his months living on the streets of Central City when he was eighteen, trying to explain that he ate kosher to self-righteous souls who offered him cheeseburgers. The looks, the comments - as though it was a _choice. _And one that trash like him hadn’t earned the right to make.

“Not a problem,” he said quickly. “You know the vegetarian diner on Fourth, near STAR Labs? Does a mean five bean chilli that I happen to know is the Flash’s favorite.”

Her eyes slid to the floor. “The Flash,” she repeated flatly.

He tried to look as apologetic as he could. “We both have something we need to discuss with you.” He held up his hands when she looked like she was about to protest. “No one will touch you. He won’t arrest you or try to take away your powers. That’s a promise.”

Meena had narrowed her eyes. “I kinda like you, Cold - but you’re still one of them. What’s your guarantee on that _promise?”_

Len’s hand moved to his cold gun. Meena raised a suspicious eyebrow, and then her eyes widened as he clicked the gun out of its holster, and laid it in front of her on the upturned crate that served as her coffee table.

_“That_ is,” he said with a nod at the gun. “I may be a meta, but I can’t stop a speedster without that gun. It stays with you - bring it with you to the diner, if you want. You get home safely at the end of the discussion, you can give it back to me. Any sign that you won’t, all you gotta do is—” he cocked two fingers at her— “aim and pull the trigger.”

Her face had softened into wry amusement. “Do you always make these dramatic speeches?”

“It’s been known to happen.”

She grinned. Standing, she picked up the cold gun - respectfully enough that Len nodded approval - and headed for the door. “Come on, then. This chilli better be as good as you’re claiming, supervillain.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, and let her lead him out of the apartment.

* * *

All things considered, Barry thought the meeting with Fast Track went well. Meena had ordered enough food to feed - well, a speedster. With any luck, it would be a little push towards encouraging her to trust them. Help them.

He was trying not to think about what would happen if she didn’t.

Yeah, they could stand in the Cortex, pouring away yet more _time, _like sand through an hourglass, while they tried to figure out how to get Len into the Speed Force - or anywhere else safe. But the sand just kept on running out, and they were no closer to an answer.

So, Meena it was. Even if Barry wasn’t sure this particular Oculus-hunch of Len’s was a good idea.

“How long, exactly?” Barry had asked at the diner, when they were alone at the table. Meena had disappeared to the bathroom - taking the cold gun with her. Barry was really trying not to think about how his boyfriend had handed a dangerous weapon to a dangerous meta. But he didn’t have time to wonder about Len’s latest crop of odd behaviour. They didn’t have _time_ for anything.

“I don’t know, Scarlet.” Len’s voice was no less patient than when he’d said it the last time. “When do I ever know when I’m going to travel in time?”

“Ballpark?” Barry had shot back, hiding his jittery hands under the table. “Weeks? Days? Hours?” 

He watched Len swallow, his eyes narrowed at Meena’s currently-empty seat. “Ever since the Oculus, it’s never been longer than a few days,” he’d said eventually. Quietly. 

When Meena got back, Barry sat back and let Len turn the charm up to eleven, no longer caring who was conning who.

Now, he was watching as Meena stared at a door. Beside him, Len was letting him take the lead with the tour. “And this is the speed lab,” Barry announced. He was okay with the pride in his voice. This lab was really something, and any speedster would be lucky to get to see it.

But Meena didn’t look like she was appreciating it. She took a wavering step inside as he opened the door for her, and then she went very still, staring again - this time, at the track.

“I remember it,” she said in a flat voice, “Last time, you brought me here in handcuffs.” 

The stab of guilt was unsettling. Barry shoved it down. He’d done the right thing. Meena had been dangerous.

Her hand was tightening around the cold gun that hadn’t left her side since Len had given it to her. Glancing at him over his shoulder, Barry didn’t see that Meena had closed her eyes until he turned back around. 

“Five,” Meena said softly, taking a step towards the entrance to the speed track.

Barry felt himself frown. “What?” The distant expression on her face reminded him of Len, when he followed a timeline back into the past or future, all in his head, without having to move an inch.

“Five speedsters have run on this track,” she said distantly. “Two didn’t belong here. One from another world and one from... the future.” She opened her eyes, turning them accusingly in Barry’s direction. “Your kid. She’s the one who tapped into the Negative Speed Force? The one who... made me.”

The thought of Nora was a knife in Barry’s gut, even though she was home, in the future, where she belonged. She still wasn’t _here._ “She didn’t mean to.”

“No, I know.” Meena took a slow, deep breath. 

He turned, meeting Len’s wide eyes, and got a shrug back. “What did you just do?” Barry asked her.

She hummed. “Hard to explain. It’s like there’s something in me that touches the lightning in them. I see... speed after-images.”

Hovering nearby, Len was watching her with a sudden look of clarity. “Psychic meta,” he murmured. “It’s tough for all of us.” She turned a questioning look on him. “That’s what the STAR Labs doc says, anyhow. Guess I’d tend to agree.”

Barry was still trying to process that exchange, shaking his head. “Psychic _how? _Meena, I’ve never met a psychic speedster...”

She shrugged. “First time for everything, isn’t there?” She was still breathing hard. “I guess I can tell when people are connected to the Speed Force. They leave speed trails behind.” She stumbled towards the raised step at the edge of the room, meeting Barry’s eyes as she sat down. “Didn’t you know that?”

He shook his head. “Huh. Dimensional energy, maybe.”

Len had dropped into a crouch next to her. “That took a lot out of you.”

“I guess.” She met his eyes, running her hand through her hair. “It’s, uh... Sometimes it feels like being dragged under water.”

“Like drowning in the river of Time,” Len was musing softly, apparently to himself. “Hmm. What’s your hot drink of choice, Ms. Dhawan?”

She stared at him as if she hadn’t been expecting the offer. “Uh... Any kind of tea?”

“I’ll be right back with it,” Len promised, and grabbed Barry’s arm.

“Hey,” Barry objected. “How many people does it take to make tea?” 

“Just come, Flash,” Len growled back at him.

* * *

As Len clattered around the STAR Labs kitchen much more loudly than necessary, Barry was trying to figure out what to say. Eventually, he just gave up and admitted, “I don’t trust her.”

Len said, “You _do_ surprise me,” so quietly Barry could barely hear him over the tea kettle.

Okay, that wasn’t fair. Barry folded his arms. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means, _Flash_, that your inner ‘evil meta’ alert is clouding your ability to see clearly, once again.” Len whirled around, leaving the kettle bubbling behind him. “Did you see that girl in the diner devouring two bowls of chilli, four side orders of mac and cheese and half a chocolate cake?” 

Barry shrugged. “She’s a speedster.” 

Len turned back to the kettle. He was breathing through his nose. Barry wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong now, but no doubt he was about to hear about it.

There was a tense span of silence, punctuated by the clatter of cups and spoons, till Len finally said, “Yeah, she is. She’s _a speedster who doesn’t eat enough. _And she’s, what, eighteen years old? And living alone in some fairly shitty housing. That all raises a whole pile of questions that there ain’t time for now, but you can be damn sure I’m gonna figure out the answers later. Right now, the more important questions are ones like, what’s the source of her power? And what’s it doing to her?”

Barry found himself shrugging. “And how do you know she’s not just pulling the wool over your eyes? Making you feel sorry for her?”

Len pulled a metal teapot off the shelf. “Maybe you could _try_ acting like you think there’s good in her. She might just start to believe it. Stranger things have happened.” He banged the teapot down on the counter.

Barry flinched.

Len turned around slowly, meeting Barry’s eyes. Barry felt a stab of guilt - shame, maybe - though he had no idea what that was about.

With his eyes unfocusing, Len said, “When Lisa was seventeen, Lewis went to jail, and she came to find me. I was running a job - can’t even remember what now, some Family thing. I’d been gone from her life for a couple of years, that time - tried to keep in touch, but—” Barry watched him swallow. “Fucking excuses,” he said under his breath. “Whatever. I’d left her, and she was alone. I tried to help her, but... Damage was done. We were never the same.” He leaned back against the counter, his inner eye now definitely searching timelines. “Sometimes I lie awake trying to figure out exactly what moment I have to travel back to, so that I can make sure she was never alone. Never do it, though.” He finally looked up at Barry, eyes hooded. “When I was facing the worst time in my life, you wouldn’t _let_ me be alone. Guess I’m just wondering which way this is gonna go for Meena.”

Barry took a risk and reached out. Len didn’t flinch away when he laid a hand on his arm. “You know this worry about Meena might be more about your guilt about letting people down, don’t you?” Barry said - softly, hoping Len would hear it as concern rather than judgment.

Len shook his head. He removed Barry’s hand, taking it gently in his own. Whatever this was about, the fight seemed to be going out of him. “Maybe, a bit. But it’s not _just_ that.” He pointed in the vague direction of the speed lab. “There’s a kid in that lab, Barry, with powers that come from a much more terrifying source than yours. And she wasn’t surrounded by friends when she got hit by that bolt of lightning. She didn’t wake up in STAR Labs to the cheery sound of Lady Gaga, with a personal engineer and doctor waiting by her bedside to give her all the guidance she needed to survive. She was alone. And four days later, we tried to arrest her.” He ran his free hand over his head. “How many more of them are there out there, Scarlet? I don’t mean the ones _you_ can help - the people who can live with their powers, weird though they might be. Who’s helping the Meenas? The Frankie Kanes? The Killer Frosts?”

“You mean the psychic metas,” Barry murmured, tightening his hand around Len’s. “The ones Caitlin is trying to find out more about.” He couldn’t take his eyes off Len’s devastated face. This was personal for him, somehow. A mission - and not one borrowed from the Oculus or shaped by Barry’s expectations. His own mission.

Len was nodding. “The psychics, yeah. And everyone else with powers that freak them out. Make life unbearable. Make them want to—”

Barry didn’t hesitate to wrap an arm around Len’s shoulder - safe, with his textured black supersuit between them. “Make them want to die?” Barry finished for him, softly. 

When Len leaned into him, Barry took him the rest of the way into his arms, letting him just breathe against his shoulder for a minute.

“You’re not the hero to her, Barry,” Len whispered into his ear, after a moment of quiet. “To her, you’re the villain. If you can’t trust her...” He trailed off. 

“It’s okay,” Barry whispered back. “I trust _you.”_

When they finally pulled apart, the look in his lover’s eyes was hard to read. “Come on,” he said, turning back to the kettle. “I promised her tea.”

* * *

Meena was still sitting on the step when they came back, looking like she hadn’t moved, and it stirred something strange in Barry’s core. He wasn’t sure he could sit next to a high-tech track in a speed lab and _not_ run around it a few times. But then, Meena’s connection to her powers seemed very different from Barry’s.

And maybe he’d underestimated just how badly the Negative Force was affecting her.

Barry sat down a little way from Meena, conscious that she was watching him with a wary look. 

He was starting to wonder if he should leave Len to work this out with her alone, or maybe get Iris. She was better with people than Barry ever had been...

Len placed a steaming mug down next to Meena.

“Look,” she was already saying, her hands starting to dance a little too fast - maybe supernaturally fast - around the edges of the mug. “I’m well aware of why you’re both being _nice_ to me. So let’s just get down to it, shall we? You need my help.”

Len was leaning back against the metal bars beside her. “We do. And like I said, we don’t have a lot to offer in return.” 

She nodded matter-of-factly. “Cold - this monster of yours, he’s threatened your boyfriend, right? And as soon as the Flash is safe, Team Flash is gonna go right back to locking me up and trying to take my powers away.” There was bitterness in her smile.

_I’m not the hero to her. I’m the villain._

“No, we won’t.” Barry hoped he sounded sincere. “You’ve asked for our help, Meena, and we’re gonna do everything we can to get you that help. If you want your speed gone, we can start by trying the meta cure on you. If you wanna master your powers, we’ll help you do whatever work it takes to get there.”

There was an exhausted note in her answering laugh. “_Master_ them?” She shook her head at the floor, her eyes on the track. “Flash, your powers are good, right? They come from a good place?” He didn’t have time to figure out how to answer that - the words were tumbling out of her. “My powers come from a dark place. Very dark. They’re— I think they’re _evil,_ you know? And maybe— maybe _I’m_...” Her voice cracked, and she went quiet.

And Barry’s heart broke for her.

He glanced at Len, whose distant look, fixed on the opposite wall, was heavy with an empathy that he didn’t seem to know what to do with.

Then Len looked down at her, his expression resolving into concern. “You okay?”

She blinked at him. “Why—?”

He nodded at her shaking hands. 

“Fuck,” she muttered, shoving them under her.

Glancing away again, Len asked, “Negative Speed Force?” in an obviously forced-casual tone. He was trying not to freak her out, Barry realised. He was pretty good at it, too.

She closed her eyes. “Yeah. Tapping into the Speed Force, before - feeling out those after-images... I can’t do it without that crap overwhelming me.” She snorted. “This Negative Force shit runs through me like poison, you know?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Barry saw Len nodding tightly. “And what are you gonna do about that, hmm?”

Her eyes flared with red lightning. “I asked for help, didn’t I?”

Len let out a self-deprecating chuckle that was probably more about him. “Doesn’t mean you’re gonna accept it.” He turned his head slightly to eyeball her. “Ms. Dhawan—”

“Meena.”

“...Meena. I don’t know you, but it looks to me like you’re in trouble.” Apparently he took her silence as confirmation. “I got a hunch that the only people who can help you are in the Speed Force. I also don’t know if they’ll let you in.”

She seemed to give in to a shudder, wrapping her arms around herself as it ran through her. “I think they will. It might suck, though...” She let her eyes drift closed. “They’re mad at me.” 

Len hmm’d. “Sorry. I imagine that’s sorta terrifying, from a godlike force from the dawn of Time.” He tilted his head. “Been there. Now, you gonna run away, speedster, or you gonna stay and face the shit you’ve done?” There was a cold intensity in his eyes.

And Barry couldn’t leave the two of them to it anymore. He joined Meena on the step, sitting down slowly beside her. “I’m sorry.”

He wondered if she was going to ask him _what for,_ but she just sighed. Then she looked sideways at him, that light-hearted look of hers beginning to return to her face. “Well,” she said. “Even if it’s not for long, there’s worse things than being needed.” She jumped up, pointing at Len. “So. How are you gonna use _me_ to get _him_ into the speed force? Have you ever even taken a slow person in there, Flash?”

Len rolled his eyes, mouthing _slow person_ at the ceiling.

Barry swallowed a laugh. “No, I haven’t. Len is a weird kind of meta, though. We think the Speed Force likes him. There’s a chance it could work.” He glanced at her. “Will you come with us to the Cortex, and we can talk you through the plan?”

She was quiet, her eyes fixed on something in the middle distance that Barry couldn’t see. It was as weird as being around Len when he was doing his Oculus thing. 

So Barry kept talking. “Because if we can’t make this work - you’re right, the man I love could die... and so could I. Meena, I’m scared.”

“Join the club,” she said with just a touch of sarcasm. “Yeah. I’ll do it, Flash. I’ll help you, and him.” She glanced up at Len, the beginnings of trust forming in her eyes, as they flashed again with the power of red lightning. 

Len smiled.

Then Meena grinned, and waved her hands. “Let’s not shake on it, guys - I don’t want to send Cold spinning through time, and I don’t have a clue what touching a _real_ speedster would do to Negative little me.” She laughed, her face bright again. 

It was good to see. He was feeling something that wasn’t so far from the way he felt around Wally, Jesse and Jay. He was starting to think of this girl as... family.

“So,” she said. “Where do we start?”

That was when Iris stepped into the room. “I think I’ve got the answer to that.” She held out a hand towards Meena. “I know we met a couple of times, but - since I wish it had been in better circumstances... Hi. I’m Iris.”

Grasping her hand back, Meena beamed. “Hi. I’m Fast Track, and I’m gonna save your boys’ lives.”

Iris raised amused eyebrows. “Thank you, Fast Track.”

But Meena hadn’t let go of her hand. She was frowning at Iris. “Oh... you were a speedster.”

With a slightly nonplussed blink, Iris replied, “Briefly, yes.”

“Huh. Cool.” Meena grinned, apparently satisfied.

Iris just smiled back. “Well then. Let’s get started, shall we?”

_Would you hear me out if I told you I was terrified for days  
_ _Thought I was gonna break_


	9. Force

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter I was not allowed to call ‘Into The Speed Force’ due to copyright.

Len groaned the groan of a man in deep pain. “I’ve gone and put my life in the hands of a brand new member of the nerd squad.”

Iris grinned up at him. They were sitting side by side at the computer desk in the Cortex. At some point, Iris’s hand had drifted into Len’s, and they were still holding on. Focusing on Meena, across the room talking earnestly with Cisco, was a good distraction from things Iris didn’t want to think about. Like Barry and Len, running into the Speed Force - without her.

Meena was making a good show of keeping up with Cisco. “Pretty smart, isn’t she?” Iris leaned back in her chair, watching the young speedster bouncing on her heels as she asked Cisco a dozen questions. “What did you say she said she used to study?”

“Engineering. And yeah - she’s crazy smart. I can’t understand half the material they’re covering, and I’ve _lived_ it.” Len gave her an eyeroll that, to anyone else, would have said he was bored. But he was deflecting from something, if his clenched jaw and jittery leg were anything to go by. Iris squeezed his hand.

He didn’t lose the impassive, cool expression, but he squeezed back.

“So here’s the deal,” Cisco was saying. “I think the Negative Speed Force and the, uh, regular Speed Force are connected. Thawne drew enhanced dark matter from the original to create his messed-up fake version.”

“Which means what for us, exactly? In _English_, Ramon.” Len had slipped into a drawl. Iris glanced up at him, but didn’t comment on what that usually meant.

He was afraid.

She knew the feeling.

Cisco rolled his eyes at Len - fondly enough that Iris smiled behind her hand. “It _means, _asshole, that you should be able to find a path from the Negative Speed Force into the Speed Force, as long as you have speedsters who know their way around each one.” He leaned against the console, tapping the board marker against his head. ”Meena can get you into the Negative Force. It’s artificial - better chance it won’t reject Snart straight off.”

Len was leaning back on his hands, his fingers drumming against the table behind him. “How _much _of a chance?”

Cisco grinned at him. “You tell me, timeline guy.”

“The Oculus and I aren’t really on speaking terms right now,” Len muttered. “My timeline calculations are a bit... off.”

Iris reached out and stilled his fingers.He gave her a strained, grateful smile.

Len’s comment got an eyebrow raise from Cisco, but nothing more. “Sure. Well, once you’re in the Negative Force, Meena and Barry are gonna need to create a bridge to the real Speed Force.”

Meena’s eyebrows raised doubtfully. “A bridge?”

He nodded, bouncing on his toes. “Kinda like how I create portals between Earths. Really similar, actually - think of the Speed Force as Earth-1, and the Negative Speed Force as a shitty imposter Earth like Earth-22. Oh - or, think of the Speed Force as Len here, and the Negative Force as Leo. Fake Snart, fake Speed Force.”

“He’ll be _so_ pleased to hear you’ve picked up that nickname,” Len quipped, his eyes twinkling. He and Leo had developed a very healthy rivalry that Len wasn’t letting go of anytime soon.

“We get it, Cisco,” Iris attempted to interrupt, but Cisco was still in full flow.

“Or - ooh, this one’s even better! Meena needs to make a _wormhole_ \- think the Bajoran one in DS9. One that’ll get you across space, time and dimensions.”

Iris blinked, as Meena replied something back that didn’t even sound like English. But Len and Barry both grinned. Star Trek reference, probably, then.

Nerd squad, indeed.

“And do you know how to create a... wormhole, like that?” Iris asked, eyebrows raised at Meena. 

Her eyes unfocused, just briefly. Then she shrugged. “Not exactly, but I can see _where_ Thawne did it. I think I can...” She dropped her arm straight in front of her, like she was marking out a path. “...Follow his trail.”

She sounded confident enough. Iris just wished she could share that feeling.

Len, who’d been watching her, reached out a thumb to smooth out Iris’s lip where she was chewing it raw. He leaned in to plant a quick kiss there. “Stop worrying, baby.”

She tried to glance away, but his sharp gaze had her caught. “What else am I supposed to do?” she whispered.

He reached down under the desk and took both her hands. Her Leonard. He always found it easier to say how he felt about them with actions than words.

“I don’t know if I can put your life, Barry’s life, into the hands of this... kid,” she admitted softly. “We don’t even know if she can get you there and bring you back.”

His eyes narrowed at her. “I’m sorry.”

It seemed to be all he knew how to say. Squeezing his hands, she turned her attention back to Barry, who was biting a fingernail. “And why do we think the Speed Force won’t crush Len like a bug the minute we enter its dimension? Even if we go in by an artificial path, we’re still entering the world of a powerful force that doesn’t like being messed with.”

Apparently determined to comfort everyone today, Len stepped away from the console and in behind Barry, cupping the back of his neck. “I told you, Barry,” he said gently. “I don’t see going _boom_ in my future.”

Barry pushed him away, just a little. “And you also said your timeline senses are off. Just... try, would you Len? I wanna be sure.”

“I’m never sure, Barry. Time doesn’t work like that.” But Iris knew he’d never been able to deny Barry a request like that. Sure enough, he’d already closed his eyes.

“What does it feel like?” Meena asked, watching him carefully.

“Like reaching tendrils out into a void,” Len narrated, his eyes still closed. “Haven’t had a reply in a while. Long story...”

He cut off into silence, while Iris reminded herself to breathe.

“Something’s pushing back against me,” he said in a distant voice. “Not the Oculus. Something else...” He blinked and opened his eyes. “It’s fine,” he lied smoothly, not looking at Iris. “I think the Speed Force is okay with us coming in. I can see us getting into the Negative Force in one piece.”

Barry smiled, apparently satisfied with that half answer.

Meena was nodding, her own eyes a little glazed over. “Agreed,” she murmured. “It’ll let us in.”

Cisco pointed between them. “You two are a special brand of weird. Keep that Speed Force shit away from me - I already vibe enough weird crap from across the multiverse, thank you very much.”

Meena suddenly looked every bit the terrified kid she was. “If I do this for you, Flash - you can’t guarantee I’ll be safe, can you?”

Barry gave her a hesitant shake of his head. “I hope you will. The Speed Force is unpredictable... but it’s good.”

“But I’m not,” she said, fast enough that it sounded like a reflex.

Iris saw something very dark cross Leonard’s face, gone again as fast as it came.

“I don’t think they’ll hurt you,” Barry reiterated. “But they also don’t let their people get away with any crap.”

“Got it,” Meena replied in a dull voice.

Leonard took a step towards her, stopping up short when she took an anxious breath. “I’ll do what I can to keep you safe,” he promised.

“That goes for me too,” Barry echoed, but it was Leonard who Meena was looking to now. He was looking back at her with an expression Iris had never seen in him before.

Meena cleared her throat, determination returning to her eyes. “Can we get on with it, then?”

“Yes,” Iris said, her chair squeaking as she stood up abruptly. “We’ll head to the speed lab in a minute. Meena, Cisco, can I have a minute alone with Leonard and Barry?”

“Sure. C’mon, kid,” Cisco was saying, leading her away. “Let’s show you the particle accelerator. You’re gonna have to get pretty comfy running around it in a minute, and we don’t want you crashing into a wall at the speed of sound, or anything.”

* * *

Len frowned after Cisco and Meena’s retreating forms.

Iris laid a hand on his arm. “What are you thinking?” she murmured.

He had two choices. Shrug her off with a deflecting comment, or... tell the truth.

He took a deep breath. “Long time ago, when were were kids, Lisa would sometimes get into these really dark moods. She’d believe the crap our shitty excuse for a father thought it was okay to tell a little girl about herself.” He shook his head slowly. “I tried, but sometimes there was no telling her otherwise.” Worrying about Meena was leaving that same feeling of injustice swirling in his gut. He pointed at the door of the Cortex. “I got no idea who’s left that _kid_ thinking she’s evil, but...”

He sighed. This deal wasn’t exactly balanced in Meena’s favor. They were using the kid - and Len had some very personal objections to that. Right there and then, he resolved to make sure they didn’t just leave her to go back to the life she’d come from.

Barry was walking slowly across the room to join them, staring thoughtfully at the floor, and apparently reading Len’s mind. “We’re not abandoning her,” he promised.

“No,” Iris agreed. “Leonard, what did you see? When you tried to talk to the Oculus, just now.” She raised a knowing eyebrow at him. “When you lied that everything was fine.”

Pain shot through his mouth before Len realised he was grinding his teeth together. “Think I tapped into the Speed Force. Not exactly a _comfortable_ feeling.” He swallowed hard. “I could see the timeline, for a minute. I could see the three of us stepping out of this dimension, into...”

“What?” asked Barry.

“Nothing. Darkness. It’s like...” He shook his head, grasping for words. “It’s like there _are_ no possible timelines after we enter the Speed Force.”

He could swear he felt Iris’s rapid pulse thrumming where her hand was squeezing his arm. “What does that mean?

“It’s a new one on me. Might mean the Speed Force hasn’t decided if it’s going to help us... Me.”

There was a long, murky silence.

After a moment, Iris looked up, rage burning in her eyes again. “Or it could mean the two of you are going to—”

Len stepped around the desk, reaching for Iris. “Stop. We’re coming back, Iris,” he said. He just hoped it sounded believable.

She was scrubbing an angry tear from the corner of her eye. “You’d better,” she muttered, and leaned in to kiss him.

As he sank deep into the kiss, pouring in everything he could never say to Iris, he refused to let himself think that this might be the last time he would ever kiss her.

(don’t let it happen)

Just as he was longing for nothing more than just a little more time with her, she pulled reluctantly away - and he caught sight of Barry standing against the wall, scuffing his shoe against the floor.

“Hey.” Len’s hand was still on Iris’s shoulder. “How ‘bout I give you two a minute, huh?”

He locked eyes with Barry, who nodded at him.

Then he slipped out, trying not to listen to the murmured conversation behind him.

Len had known for a long time that he never wanted to replace Barry in Iris’s life, or her in his. They were a trio—Len was starting to hope they always would be—but it mattered to him that Barry and Iris still got to be a married couple too. And right now, the two of them needed to say goodbye. Too many universe-ending moments had ripped Barry out of Iris’s arms without giving them that chance, over the years. Len would be damned if he’d let his latest fucked-up situation do that to them again.

He quickened his step towards the speed lab.

* * *

There was a roaring in Meena’s ears.

The river of Time was flooding its banks.

She opened her eyes into thick darkness, and struggled to remember where she was.

She had been looking for... a path? Right - they’d left from the speed lab, with Len clinging onto her hand, while she had told him not to let go and he _didn’t, _and she had no idea why had they trusted her, nothing but a stranger who said she knew where the path was—

They had run. Straight into the Negative Speed Force.

She’d never gone so deep in. It had lit up all her senses with red lightning, shrieking in her ears, destroying everything in its wake. _She_ had destroyed everything.

She remembered screaming.

She remembered Cold and the Flash, not letting her give in to the madness.

She remembered, a moment before the darkness came down like a curtain around her, seeing the shape of the path. The way into the real Speed Force.

And then... that was all she remembered.

There was a crackle. The Flash’s face lit up the darkness, his eyes sparking lightning, shadowed with fear. He was leaning over someone. “Len?” he asked softly.

Damn, that speedster was really into that ex-villain. 

“Is he okay?” she asked, surprising herself with how much she cared.

Cold sat bolt upright. (Meena managed not to gasp. This place was creepy.) “Where are we?”

“Speed Force,” she heard herself answer, like she knew. She wondered, distantly, if they could feel how scared she was. 

Around them there was the awakening of light, like sunrise through a window.

“Fuck,” Cold said. “I know where we are.” He grimaced, pulling himself to his feet. “Barry, you said the Speed Force wears the faces of people you know?”

“Yeah. I think it thinks it’s reassuring.” The Flash snorted. “It’s mostly the opposite, actually.”

A sense of dread was pooling in Meena’s stomach. And it wasn’t _her _dread. She’d been psychic for months, but she’d never seen right into people’s heads - hearts - like this.

In a grim moment, everything inside her was on fire. She was the negative pole of a magnet, shuddering against a positive end. _She wasn’t supposed to be here._

She took a step backwards. There was rough carpet under her feet. Cold - Len - he knew this floor... had dragged himself up off it before. “This place - it doesn’t want me here.” She glanced at Len, who had his head tilted at her. “Or you.”

“Yeah,” he muttered, his eyes flickering towards the door. “Got a feeling it’s gonna deal with me first.”

The light behind the window was getting brighter. They were in a house. Ashtrays and beer bottles littered old-style tables.

The front door creaked open.

Len glanced at her, _knowing,_ and Meena was suddenly sorry. He was a man who valued his privacy. She shouldn’t be able to invade it like this.

And then everything Len was feeling was drowned out by the sense of a huge, terrifying _presence, _getting closer. Bigger than anything she’d ever encountered before, and very, very angry.

The Speed Force wasn’t mad at Meena. She’d been wrong. All that anger she’d felt before - it had never been about her.

Len’s eyes were on the door, as it opened all the way, and a man stepped into the house.

“Hi, son,” said the most chilling voice Meena had never heard before.  
  


_Oh, I couldn’t stop it,  
_ _Tried to slow it all down_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly shorter one for you this time, than my usual epics! Next chapter, we find out how Len has messed up... and there’s a lot of smut-with-feelings.


	10. Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Speed Force is not happy with Len, and it wants answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [Mina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/minachandler/pseuds/minachandler) for insightful beta reading.
> 
> Smut warning (Len/Barry) towards the end of this chapter, though it’s really just a hint of smut and mostly feelings, in my usual style! If you want to skip it, start and end points are in the endnotes.

Len met his father’s eyes with a tired sense of deja-vu.

“You know I’m a time traveler, yeah?” he said to the Speed Force. “This doesn’t impress me. Done this before.”

The Speed Force leered at him. “What - invaded places where you don’t belong?” it scoffed, in an unsettlingly good impression of Lewis Snart. 

It wasn’t just the voice, either. This _ was _ his father - no doppelganger or conjuring trick. Len could feel it the moment Lewis strode forward in an oh-so-familiar movement and clamped a hand on Len’s shoulder, an old warning in his grasp. He was younger than when Len had shot an icicle into him, his still-wiry frame and graying hair putting him in his 40s. The same age as Len was now. And, damn - Len had forgotten how much like his father he looked. Those hard eyes, holding Len’s gaze, were brown where his were blue - but there was something callous behind them that was all Len.

Years ago, that voice, that hand on his shoulder, would have put the fear of G-d into Len. Once, there was almost nothing he wouldn’t do, when Lewis Snart gave the order.

But times had changed. _ He _ had changed. And Len wasn’t going to be so easily cowed by an illusion of his father. This was the Speed Force - and the form it had appeared to him in was telling. It wasn’t exactly aiming for welcoming. 

He pulled himself up to his full height - he’d always been a little taller than Lewis, and never unaware of the irony of having outgrown at fifteen the man who would keep browbeating him till his forties - and pulled away from his father’s hand. Tapping his thigh, finding the cold gun still there, Len drew and aimed in one fluid motion. The gun’s signature whirr was a nice reassurance, something normal to hold onto in this bizarre place. Being able to stand safely behind it wasn’t bad, either. “Yeah, we’ve come places we don’t _ belong,” _he drawled. “I’m being pursued by an inter-dimensional superhuman being who thinks my time travel powers—you know, the ones I got by accident?—need to be wiped out, along with me. Apparently Blue has a grudge against your golden boy over here, too.” He gestured at Barry, watching wide-eyed beside him, while Meena hung back silently behind them both. “Where else would you have liked us to go?” 

Lewis Snart’s face twisted as he laughed, and Len restrained himself from wincing. “You got bold, son. Learned to stand up to me. I like it.”

“Quit the act,” Len snapped, bored of this already. “You’re not my father.” Just because he knew that, didn’t mean Len wasn’t boiling with rage at the sight of him.

A shrug and a smirk. Too familiar. Too much like everything Len had learned how to be. “This was the face in your mind that best communicated... disappointment,” the Speed Force said, slipping into a tone that was just a little less like Lewis.

Len lowered the gun - slowly. “And why would you be disappointed in me, hmm?”

Those chilling eyes met Len’s again. “You know perfectly well why.”

Manhattan’s voice, echoing in his mind: _ You changed too much. _

And Len was done. 

He stepped away to the window, looking out at a perfect replica of his childhood garden, complete with barely-overgrown lawn and a broken swing with sharp edges. “If you wanna talk about this,” he croaked, “I’m gonna need you to be someone else.” He cleared his throat. “I mean it.”

“Perhaps you would prefer this face, Leo,” said a voice he had almost forgotten. For a moment, he was afraid to turn around. There were things even his cold persona couldn’t stand up to, and he knew she would be one of them.

But he did turn - it felt like he’d never moved more slowly - until he was looking at a face he hadn’t seen in thirty years.

* * *

Three Months Ago 

“I need your help,” Len said.

The Eye blinked at him, regular and predictable as ever. Shame Barry wasn’t here. Len could have made a pun about the Oculus and _ clockwork _ that would have had his lover groaning in pain.

But Barry wasn’t here. Just as well, really, since Len was about to do something that Barry had learned years ago was a very, very bad idea.

Len didn’t care. 

He was well aware that he’d never been very good at moving on from the past. But all these months, traveling, letting himself start thinking he was a damn hero - maybe it had made that worse. He’d been learning how to help people who just needed him to nudge at the edge of Time. How to save them.

So what if he’d started thinking about other people who needed saving, a long time ago? It was idle daydreaming, nothing more.

Until one late-night conversation with Lisa, when they’d both had more to drink than either of them usually cared to. Till Len’s tongue was looser than he generally allowed, when it came to matters of Time. 

“Oh, come on, Lenny.” She was curled up beside him on the West-Allens’ sofa, occupying that uncanny valley between perfectly comfortable and just a little out of place. It was like looking in a shattered mirror. “Is it a bit like you’re the Flash, only with time travel? D’you feel like a hero, saving all those people?”

He remembered sighing, rolling his eyes at her. “I ain’t a hero, sis. Leave that to those lovely better angels of mine.” He gestured towards the bedroom, where Barry and Iris had retired a while ago. “I just... go where I’m sent, I guess. Do what needs doing.”

“But you could be,” she purred in a voice as smooth as liquid gold. “A hero. If it mattered.” Something was glittering in her eyes. It reminded him of how she’d looked at him when she was just a little girl. Like he could change her world. 

He glanced away, uneasy looking at all that hope. “Doubt it. Can’t change anything that matters. Not even in my own life.” 

She hummed. “Who says?”

“The big guns of the damn universe.” He swirled ice and whiskey around and around in his glass, his eyes tight on the cold droplets forming along the rim. “The ones who make the rules.” 

Her light, musical laugh filled the room. “Oh, Lenny. You really have changed, haven’t you? What did caring about the _ rules _ ever get either of us? Nothing good. That’s why we learned to break them.” 

When he didn’t answer, she reached out and laid a hand over his, an unusual gift of affection. Lisa loved the same way he did - with rare trust and a guarded heart.

_ You always have to look out for yourself. _

“You could do one good thing for someone who actually matters, and not some stranger,” she said. Quietly. Like she was sincere, for once in her damn life.

He finally pulled his gaze up from their linked hands to his baby sister’s eyes, shining with something he hadn’t seen there since she was seven years old, and he wanted to pull away, but he couldn’t move. 

And now he was drowning in blue light and silence. It was becoming clear that the Oculus wasn’t going to reply, so Len tried again. “You hear me, Grand Poobah of Time? I need your help.”

Finally that eerie, too-familiar Voice boomed out of the light and straight into his brain. “With what, Leonard Snart?” 

Well, now or never. “I want to... bring someone back.”

“You wish to resurrect someone who is dead.” There was no clue in the Voice as to how it felt about that. He’d wondered for a long time if the Oculus was capable of feeling anything. If it wasn’t, this probably wasn’t going to go Len’s way.

He stared back at the blinking Eye. “Not exactly. There was someone who shouldn’t have died. I just wanna make it so she didn’t.”

“There is no _ should _ in life and death, Leonard Snart. You yourself know this intimately.” Len fought to ignore the image of himself, being blown into a million pieces, that had already been downloaded into his brain. “Humans are frail, mortal. Their bodies fail.” 

He swallowed a wave of rage, channeling it into sarcasm. “Sure do, when they can’t stand living anymore.”

The Eye regarded him impassively, but it was reaching into his mind, searching his memories. “She did not choose to end her life.”

“As good as did,” Len muttered.

* * *

Now 

“Who is she, Len?” Barry asked, even though he had already guessed.

The woman, who Len apparently couldn’t take his eyes off, had brown skin and mid-length hair nestled in curls around her face. She was younger than Len - much younger, Barry realised with a shock, figuring out what that meant. And she was familiar, in the same way Francine West had been familiar when he met her - her child an echo of the best things about her.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Snart,” he said, and she turned a warm smile on Barry. 

“Call me Alicia.” She had a kind smile, and Barry couldn’t help smiling back. 

“You’re not my mother,” Len snapped. He had turned back to the window.

The woman’s smile didn’t break. “Tell him that’s not quite true, would you, Flash?”

Barry took a step towards Len. If there was one thing he knew about the Speed Force, it was that it had all the time in the universe. It could damn well wait while Len dealt with this. Laying a hand on Len’s shoulder, he said, “I don’t know how to explain it. It’s weird. They’re not our friends and family... but they sort of _ are _ the people we love, too.“

“Indeed,” said a man’s voice behind them.

Beside them, Meena - who had been very quiet and still until now - blinked hard. “Oh,” she said.

“Hello, Meena, sweetie,” said the man in what Barry recognised as an Indian accent, moving towards her for a hug. When she stepped back, the man’s smile didn’t falter.

Barry could have been watching the moment when the Speed Force showed itself to him as his mother. Meena’s face was a mix of grief and hope, and painful to look at.

Len’s eyes narrowed further. “Your father, I presume?”

Meena nodded, glancing back at the Speed Force avatar. “He’s been dead for three years.” She coughed. “That’s quite a feat. It could really be him.”

“We have things to discuss, Fast Track.” The quality of his voice had shifted, become sterner. 

“This is nuts,” Len announced, a very cold expression on his face.

Meena had shrunk back, her expression tightened into fear. “You gonna tell me I shouldn’t be here too?”

“No,” said the Speed Force avatar. “But we need to talk.” He put a heavy hand on her shoulder. “Come with us. We have things we wish to show you.”

She faltered. “How long for?”

Len was watching them with calculating eyes. “She safe with you? You’ll bring her back?” 

The avatar shot Len a withering look. “We would never hurt a speedster.” 

“Just being here hurts,” Meena grumbled.

“I’m afraid that’s not our doing, Fast Track. It’s your connection to the Negative Speed Force that makes you wish to leave this place. But we can give you... a reprieve from that.” The Speed Force avatar caught Meena’s gaze in his own, and something passed between them. Barry had seen that before - the Speed Force sharing a little of its healing and peace with its speedsters. Meena, he realised all at once, belonged to the Speed Force as much as he did. “Better?” her father asked her.

She just nodded. He was already guiding Meena out with a hand on her back. There was a look on her face that might have been shame, but she didn’t seem to be afraid.

But Len’s eyes were still wide and alarmed. “Wait,” he said, laying a firm hand on the man’s shoulder.

In an explosion of lightning, Len was thrown back onto the ground.

“Len!” Barry yelled, rushing to his side. 

_ “Don’t _ interfere,” the Speed Force warned them both.

Len struggled up, his eyes on Meena. “Are you good with this, kid?” She nodded silently, and he turned back to Barry. “This… thing. It can be trusted with her?”

Barry took a moment’s pause. The Speed Force was mysterious, and a very long way from human. It had done some self-serving things, but it had never meant Barry any harm. Not really. “I think so.” He glared at Meena’s father. “But you’re bringing her back. She goes home with us, when we’re done here.”

“Agreed,” the avatar said impassively.

Meena managed a smile at Barry. “I’m good, Flash. Really, I feel better. I think they cleared some of that Negative shit from my system.”

He nodded, and turned back to Len, still breathing hard on the ground. When he glanced back, Meena was gone.

Alicia Snart crouched down beside them. Len caught sight of her face and... melted. It was the strangest thing Barry had seen in his boyfriend for a long time. She placed a hand on Len’s forehead, and he didn’t pull away. He just looked at her. “My poor boy,” she murmured. 

“She’s just a kid,” Len whispered, turning worried eyes on Barry, who could only shake his head helplessly.

“Shh. She’ll be okay. We keep our promises.” The Speed Force avatar kept her hand on his head. “Calm now.” She smiled at Barry. “He always did worry more about other people than himself.”

Something odd flickered across Len’s face. “That’s crap.” Pushing himself up, he shrugged his mother’s hand away.

“No,” she said, firmly but kindly. “You were always a good boy. You’ve just forgotten.”

Len blinked between Barry and the Speed Force avatar. Barely-repressed rage was now flickering Oculus-blue in his eyes. “Enough of this,” he snapped. “I don’t know if you’re my mother or not, and I don’t care. We came here for a reason.”

“Yes, you did,” Alicia said, standing. She was tiny, compared with Len’s tall frame, but when she turned that searching gaze on him, she seemed to tower over him. Then she narrowed her eyes at their surroundings. “We need to talk, but you’re not staying in this damn house.” And she snapped her fingers above her head.

Barry blinked new sunlight out of his eyes. They were standing in a cornfield. 

“Cobblers Field,” he said, in unison with Len. 

Barry turned to grin at him. “You know it?”

“Sure.” Len was looking around with a smile. “Field between Central and Keystone. Used to come here for picnics with Lisa. How do you know it? They tore it down to reroute the freeway.”

Barry grinned. “Yeah - when I was twelve. This is one of the places Joe and Iris used to bring me to learn to fight.” He grinned at the warm memory, turning to look at corn-yellow surroundings bathed in the red light of sunset. “I liked it here. It was peaceful.”

Len smiled at him. “Yeah.”

“Leonard,” the Speed Force avatar said, the rumble of a threat in her powerful voice. “We must deal with what you’ve done.”

Fear was tearing at Barry’s stomach. He put his hand on the back of Len’s head - there was no risk of losing him to Time here. “He’s done nothing,” he said numbly, uselessly. Resentment followed, bubbling up inside him. None of them got to take Len. Not Manhattan, and not the Speed Force. _ He’s mine. _

Alicia looked at Barry with all the unfathomable power of the Speed Force. “I think we all know that’s not true, don’t we, Flash?” She turned back to Len, who had a faraway look in his eyes. “Don’t we, Leo?”

“Barry knows,” Len said distantly. “I told him, and Iris, before all this mess started.”

Nodding, she said, “And now you will tell us.” She settled herself down on the soft ground, between corn stalks, gesturing for Len and Barry to join her. “You put the timeline and our speedsters in danger, Leonard. You went against the advice of the Oculus never to change Time, beyond the insignificant moments it guided you to. And now you will explain why you saved your mother’s life, Leo.” There was a long, painful silence. 

Finally, Len sat. “I did it because the Oculus showed me how,” he said, almost a whisper. 

He was shaking.

Barry dropped to his knees on the ground beside him, a hand on Len’s knee. “It’s okay,” he murmured.

“No, Flash. It’s not,” Alicia said, lightning sparking in her eyes. “The Speed Force must decide why we shouldn’t just leave him to be torn apart by Manhattan - or by the time wraiths. Why it wouldn’t just be safer for the world if we left him to be wiped from the timeline.” She looked Len dead in his devastated eyes. “Why do you deserve to be saved, just so you can live to make this mistake again, Leo?”

Len shook his head. “I don’t deserve it,” he whispered, as Barry’s hand tightened around his knee. “I never deserved this power. Maybe you should just let it destroy me.”

Looking into the face of that great timeless force, the source of his own power, Barry didn’t know how to tell Len he was wrong.

* * *

Three Months Ago 

Len wondered if there was any point trying to explain his wreck of a family history to the Oculus. Maybe this distant power existed so far beyond human life that it could never understand. He sighed, wishing there was something to lean against in this otherworldly dimension, and tried anyway. “She never had any kind of start in life to begin with. And then she married that... monster.”

Closing his eyes, he _ thought _ a picture to the Oculus. Something he remembered from a long, long time ago. His mother on the ground; Lewis looming over her; Len in the corner, watching, silent.

The Oculus fucking _ ignored _ it. It was looking for something else. Len gave in, watching it scroll through memories like his mind was a damn smartphone. “She became...” The Oculus paused, as though seeking the word. “Addicted. To poisons.”

Leonard didn’t need to breathe in this place. If he had, he would have been breathing hard through the urge to hit someone. Not that the Oculus had a body to hit, and wasn’t that a shame? “He treated her like shit for years,” he growled. “It wasn’t her _ fault.” _

The Oculus let out a noise that might have been laughter. “Your stories shape your world, Leonard Snart. You are so determined to divide people into black and white, good and bad. But which are you? Hero or villain?”

His hands - if they were really hands, in this _ nowhere _ \- had clenched into fists. “That’s not what we’re talking about right now.”

“Perhaps it is,” said the Voice, resounding through every cavity in his head. “Perhaps you want to—” It paused, searching Len’s mind for the words. “...Make amends.”

“Will you let me help her?” Len snarled, sick of this nonsense.

The Eye just kept blinking. “Do you think you are such a hero, Leonard Snart, that you can save her?”

“No,” he whispered. Something rubbed across his face - maybe his own hand. “But I’ve been going to places - times - where I feel like maybe I’m meant to do good. And I ain’t heard any complaints from you yet. You’re letting me change little things. But I don’t get to be a hero for the people who really needed it?”

There was a noise like thunder, harsh and angry. “You will not be allowed to change fixed points in Time, Leonard Snart. Your mother’s death helped to shape the course of your life. It set you on the path to becoming what you are.”

“So I do have a destiny? Thought you said I got these powers by accident.”

The Oculus ignored that question too.

“There has to be a way,” Len insisted, desperation starting to creep in. He could only exist in this dimension for very brief periods, when the Oculus let him. And he could feel Time running out.

“No,” echoed the Voice.

Len let go of the fists on either side of him. “Fine. Then I’m done. I don’t work for you anymore.”

“You have never worked for anyone but yourself, Leonard Snart,” the Oculus insisted - but there was a worried quality to the noise in Len’s head, now. _ Good. _

“Why do I feel like that’s at least partly bullshit?” At the Oculus’s silence, he shrugged. “Whatever. I’m sick of waiting for you to tell me the whole story. If you won’t help me with this one damn thing, then I’m done being your lackey. I know some very smart people. I’ll find a way to stop traveling in Time.”

To emphasise his point, he turned around, though there was nowhere to go.

“Wait,” said the Oculus.

_ Bingo. _

Len turned back to the Eye. “There's a way, ain’t there?”

A pause, and then: “There may be.”

* * *

Now 

The Speed Force was a godlike being with no concept of space or Time that Barry could get his head around. But apparently it possessed more humanity than Barry had realised.

It gave Len and Barry time to talk.

Leonard was clearly exhausted after the conversation with the Speed Force avatar that looked like his mother. Barry had to all but drag him away from the field. A few steps beyond it, their surroundings flickered like a glitching video game, resolving into the West house around them.

_ “Childhood _ is becoming a theme here,” Len drawled with obvious distaste.

Barry winced. “You should have seen where they brought me the first time I was here,” he said. He didn’t try to explain, and Len didn’t ask.

At the bottom of the stairs, Barry paused. “Which would piss you off less - resting in my childhood bedroom, or... Joe’s room?”

“Resting, huh?” Len waggled his eyebrows, and Barry snorted. Len was looking around the West house, sighing. “Can I beg the Speed Force to put me back in my childhood home instead? This is the worst.”

Barry rolled his eyes and pushed Len up the stairs. 

They collapsed on Barry’s old twin bed, with Len cuddled up against him. “Are you okay?” Barry asked him.

Len made a noise that might have been an affirmative. “Mostly.” He sat up, shifting Barry a bit to make room. “When I told you about... what I did...”

“Saving your mother’s life,” Barry clarified, trying not to worry about sounding blunt. They needed to be on the same page.

Something flickered across Len’s face and was gone again a moment later. “Yeah. You said...”

“That I understood,” Barry finished for him, thinking back to that day in the STAR Labs lounge, at the start of all this, when all Len’s secrets had come out at once. Barry had been pissed at first, but more that Len was keeping secrets than at what he’d done. Iris had said very little, except to tell Len that she didn’t blame him either. 

“And do you still understand?” 

Len’s eyes were lifted to the ceiling, where there was a picture of Christina Aguilera, dating the surroundings to Barry’s early 2000s-era bedroom. Barry was pretty sure that poster had been replaced by one of Ashton Kutcher soon after this. Joe had raised his eyebrows once, but never complained.

Barry curled his hand around Len’s, enjoying the feel of his ungloved skin. If there was one place he wasn’t going to set Len off like a Time bomb, it was here. “I’m not in any position to judge, Len. I told you that before.” 

“Right,” Len murmured. “But I told you it wasn’t like Flashpoint...” Len wriggled around to face him, an intensity in his eyes that Barry didn’t understand. He just waited for him to get where he was going, at his own slow pace. 

But Len was quiet so long that Barry gave in to the urge of curiosity. “How did you do it?” Len raised questioning eyebrows. “How did you save her without creating another Flashpoint?”

Sighing, Len let his head fall back against the headboard. “Simple,” he said, with just a touch of Captain Cold in his voice. “The fixed point in Time was never her death. I just had to _ believe _ she’d died. So, I arranged for an old friend to reach out to her when things were darkest for her. They convinced her to go into rehab, and then to leave Lewis. Meant leaving her children, of course.” His tone was almost flippant, but there was something very cold in his eyes. “I don’t think persuading her was all that hard.”

Barry thought of Nora, back in her own time. Not in the present, with him and Iris. And wondered how any parent could let their child go without a fight.

“Fortunately for her, she trusted this friend,” Len went on, drawling every other word. His hand was tight around Barry’s. “One day, when Lewis damn near killed her—” his eyes were dull, remembering it— “she walked out. Lewis didn’t follow her for a long time. When he did, someone had helped her fake her death. Her family believed the lie.”

Barry stared at him, taking in the impersonal language he’d shifted into. “Len... do you remember both timelines?”

Blank eyes blinked back at him. “If I try hard enough, I can remember most timelines.”

“And in that timeline... you believed she’d left you _ and _ died.”

Len shrugged the most dramatic shrug Barry had seen from him in a long time, and gave him a cold smile. “Oh, Barry. That’s what I believed in every timeline.” When Barry was apparently silent for too long, Len added, “She wasn’t your mother, Barry. She wasn’t some saint whose tragic death created heroes. She wasn’t a particularly good mother, and she walked out on us and left us with _ him.” _His eyebrows went up as he played with a corner of the bedding. “Guess I learned a lot from her.”

“This - saving her - it was never about _ you, _was it Len?”

He scowled. “Doesn’t really matter who it was for. Still got me the attention of a superbeing who wants me dead. And we still don’t know how to solve that problem.”

Barry sighed, slumping down, suddenly so tired.

Len untangled their hands. “Sorry to burst your bubble, Barr. Mothers, and all.”

“‘S okay,” he murmured. “They’re probably debating your fate out there. We should sleep while we get the chance.”

“Yeah.”

Len’s eyes were dark and distant as they lay down to sleep, curled around each other.

* * *

At some point in the night, Len heard Barry get up and slip out. 

He kept his eyes shut tight. Barry’s relationship to this place was bound to be very different from his own.

(they love him. he’s theirs)

A moment later, he could hear multiple voices talking, low and warm, in the next room.

(you’re not. you don’t belong here)

As a distraction, he reached over and turned on the bedside lamp. “Shut up,” he snapped at the voice in his head.

It was at least an hour later when Barry returned. Len knew because he’d been lying awake, trying and failing to put a plan together, staring at some ridiculous picture on the ceiling of a girl that Barry had clearly never liked. 

Sliding in next to him, Barry reached for him, desperation urgent in his gaze, in his touch; a speedster’s warmth seeping into his cotton-covered ass, an impossible pulse in the thumb stroking his shirt. Every touch grasping and greedy, as if he wanted to get much closer than would have been wise if they were at home. Not a problem here, though. Len had a feeling the Speed Force wouldn’t be letting him travel in time again until they were satisfied he wouldn’t do any more damage. 

Barry leaned in for the needy kiss he was clearly looking for, and Len didn’t resist. The events of the past few days had started playing on a loop through his head, one rushing into the other like a flood of fate he couldn’t divert. 

He rubbed his hand between Barry’s shoulder blades, gently murmuring, “What happened with the Speed Force, Barry?”

“Nothing - nothing much,” he whispered, his gaze honest. “I just... need to be close to you.” He was breathing dangerously close to the bare skin of Len’s neck. Running his hands under Len’s shirt, along exposed flesh. Pulling the shirt up and off, so gently, watching Len for reactions with every movement. Len let him. 

Len’s tattoos were old - mostly. They ranged from his first, a small row of stars designed to distract from a scar he was gifted with when he was fifteen, to his most recent, a depiction of a shot of ice from the cold gun into a heart - and wasn’t it telling that Barry had never asked about that one. They were all in place before Len’s return from the Oculus. He’d been more than a little amused to find he was resurrected with every single scar, mark and line of ink intact. Of course his battered old body couldn’t even get a fresh start from the damn Oculus.

Barry was running his hands down Len’s chest, wide eyes taking in designs in more detail than Len had ever let him look at them before. A gold rose for Lisa. A hamsa for his mother. Len didn’t even flinch when Barry’s fingers found scars beneath, though he didn’t linger on them. He was looking at the tattoos. Symbols that covered stories, deflections from distractions from lies… and somewhere under all that sleight of hand, something like truth, so deeply buried that Len didn’t know where it ended or began. 

Barry’s hand wavered above his thigh, over a simple design of a box sinking beneath an ocean, nothing but the last corner visible. He raised questioning eyes to meet Len’s. 

“I could tell you the story,” Len ventured. It felt like the bravest thing he’d ever said.

Barry smiled.

Len reached out and pressed Barry’s fingers down on a round scar beneath the box tattoo. “Bullet went right through the leg. One of Lewis’s jobs - _ horribly _ planned, of course. Could have done the job better myself when I was twelve. Cops wouldn’t have started shooting if I’d been in charge, I can tell you that much.” He took Barry’s silence as a cue to continue. “I was so pissed, I took the cash box with my take and threw it into the fucking ocean. Got the tattoo as a reminder not to be such a damn idiot again… Not to let _ him _ get that close to killing me again.”

“How old were you?” 

“Seventeen,” he replied, offhand. “Thing is,” he went on, mostly so he wouldn’t have to think about the pity he’d see in Barry’s eyes if he stopped talking, “I started having dreams about that damn box, floating back up out of the sea when I least expected it. Every night for a while, starting when I was - oh, maybe thirty. Eventually figured it was about more than a job gone wrong and a wad of cash and jewelry at the bottom of the ocean.”

He waited for Barry to change the subject, but he was just listening.

Len skimmed his fingers across faded ink and ropey, uneven skin beneath. “Anyway. I figure maybe you ignore the past for something like forty years, and ignore it, and ignore it… well, shit floats. The monsters in the box come out to play when you’re looking in the other direction.”

There was something hot and unfamiliar burning in his chest. 

“Kiss me,” Barry murmured in his ear. 

When Len responded more eagerly than he probably should have, Barry’s lips moved softer and calmer against him than he expected. This wasn’t the desperate grasping in the night that Len had thought it was. The kiss was deep enough that they had to break apart to breathe a few moments later. “Thank you,” Barry murmured.

“For what?”

“That’s the first honest, unprompted story you’ve told me about your past... oh, probably ever.”

Len felt his eyebrows crease together. 

And there was a hand on his arm. “No, don’t do that, Len. I’m not saying we need you to tell us everything. I know you think we can’t handle everything - and honestly, there are probably a lot of things in your past I wouldn’t _ want _ to know about. The past couple of weeks have reminded me of that. But you’re not wrong about the box.” He was running his hand down Len’s thigh, frowning at the tattoo, as if he thought he could see the scar beneath if he looked hard enough. “It gets worse when you push it away.” His voice got a bit more distant, as his hand stroked Len’s thigh. “I know about that too.”

“Thought you all wanted me to move on from the past,” Len griped, his voice childish.

Barry flashed him a grin fast enough to match his moniker. “Funny things, paradoxes, aren’t they?”

“I hate you.” 

Barry snorted, and then his face turned serious, his hand stilling on Len’s thigh. “I’ve been an asshole to you.”

“Nah.” Len shrugged a shoulder, a little taken aback by the sadness in Barry’s tone. He reached back over for the lamp, turning it off, and they were swallowed by darkness. “You came face-to-face with what I am - what I’ve done. It was a lot.”

“It shouldn’t have been. I knew about all of that.” Barry shook his head, a shadow in the low illusion of street lighting. “I’ve been trying to change you. And then I realised I can’t change the past, and it was...”

“No,” Len said softly, his hand finding Barry’s face in the eerie light. “You liked the hero side of me. That’s okay. I just can’t be everything you want me to be.”

“You’ve never asked why I have to hold the line between heroes and villains,” Barry replied, his voice trembling. “Len, you know I’ve been through dark times, but I don’t think you know just how dark. I’ve done things... wanted things. I didn’t just want to kill Zoom - I really would have done it, if my friends hadn’t pulled me back from the brink. I still feel that, when I think about him - how much I want to rip his fucking throat out. And he wasn’t the only one, not by a long shot. I just— I can’t ever give in to that side of me.”

“I know, Barry.” Len stroked his lover’s cheek gently, his heart clenching at the surprise of tears under his fingertips. “I know more than you think I do. I get why you need to be a hero.”

“But that shouldn’t let me dictate who you are. Who you get to be.” 

Len didn’t answer. He didn’t have an answer to that - not yet.

And then there were warm lips on his thigh, accepting everything about him, even all this baggage, all this shit that made up his past and present... and fuck if that wasn’t completely terrifying and utterly wonderful all at once.

Responding to the shift in mood with a sly smile, Barry slid a little way down the bed and took Len in his mouth.

Sex with Barry was always a gamble. It needed Iris there to ground them both, or Len could blink out of the timeline. Three times out of four, he did just that, right in the middle of it - and wasn’t that embarrassing as all hell. But here, in this creepy place beyond Time, with Len’s hand tight in Barry’s hair and Barry’s hand still firm on his thigh, they grounded each other. 

Len couldn’t take his eyes off Barry while he sucked him off. He was breathing hard, eyes a little unfocused with the effort, and he was beautiful. Len just gazed down at his damn miracle, at this guy who knew far too much about Len and shouldn’t love anything about him, and yet loved everything about him.

Barry was good at this, too. That had been a surprise, at first, when Len knew Barry had far less experience with guys than he did. But Barry cared enough to learn what made Len tick like a finely tuned watch. And right now he was putting all of that learning into practice, with his signature youthful, superheroic enthusiasm that Len sometimes envied.

“Fuck, Barry— I’m—” He tugged on his hair, where he was still gripping it just a little tighter than he probably needed to. 

Barry pulled his mouth away in a lightning flash, slowing down again - thankfully - to take him in hand. There was a little smirk on his face, like he was making the most of this opportunity, his strokes and movements just the right side of obscene. But when he met Len’s gaze, all that fell away, and the only thing left in his eyes was... 

Fuck. 

_ Love. _

Len came quietly, breathing hard and lost in the moment, with one hand still tangled in Barry’s hair, the other reaching out to find Barry’s hand under the bed covers.

Barry was quiet, too, as Len reached out to reciprocate. But he gave in to a needy sound when Len tweaked a nipple through his t-shirt and tutted. “How are you still half-dressed and I’m not?” Len pointedly didn’t ask if the shirt was real - if anything here was - just lifted it over Barry’s head, admiring his blown pupils as it was pulled away. Barry got his underwear off at inhuman speeds, dragging a laugh from Len. 

And then Len realised the logistical issues of doing anything, on this tiny bed, if he wanted to see Barry. And he did.

He scooted in tight towards Barry, face to face, reaching down and taking hold of him. They were so close and so quiet that Len could feel his hot breath, hear the little hitches in his throat as he started to get turned on again. 

He kissed Barry’s neck as he stroked him, letting his tongue roam down as far as he could move, ignoring the whines that followed every time he found a sensitive spot. Well, Len wasn’t a villain for nothing. 

“Come ooon, Lenny...”

He moved back up to whisper, “We’re taking this _ slow,” _ in Barry’s ear, kissing him to shut him up when the sounds of complaint started. Damn speedster and his eternal need to _ rush. _

And then Barry stopped talking, building oh-so-slowly towards the edge with his eyes fixed on Len’s, still full of that acceptance and love that was threatening to push Len over his own, very different edge.

“You okay?” Barry asked, a moment afterwards, flopping over next to him.

Len smiled at him, shaking his head. “I have no idea.” He couldn’t help grinning at Barry’s confused expression. He reached over to cup his face, searching his eyes for something he couldn’t name. 

Then he leaned in and kissed him, just a light touch of their lips together.

They were squashed against each other, tight and uncomfortable, on this tiny twin bed, surrounded by a terrifying, powerful force that held their future in its metaphorical hands, and Len hadn’t felt this happy in a long time.

  
_And do you believe me now  
That I always had the best intentions, babe?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The smut is in the final scene of the chapter and you won’t miss any plot if you skip it, just Len having a lot of feelings. Smut starts in earnest at: _ Responding to the shift in mood with a sly smile_... It ends at: _“You okay?” Barry asked, a moment afterwards, flopping over next to him._


	11. Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Len shook his head at the image of the Oculus Wellspring, exploding, over and over. “You’ll die.”
> 
> The Voice echoed sadly in Len’s head. _All things must die, Leonard Snart. Not even the first forces of the multiverse are immortal._
> 
> “But if there’s no destiny anymore… Anything could happen. What if I destroy Time?”
> 
> Mick raised an eyebrow. “What if you save it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to Mina for insightful beta reading.

There was no sense of Time in the Speed Force. Not for Len, who could _ feel _ the timelessness of a place like this. 

(it felt like a hand around his throat)

But when he woke up, there was a good approximation of sunlight streaming in through Barry’s old bedroom window. Something like morning, then.

Barry was fast asleep, curled around him as though he hadn’t let go all night. Len caught himself smiling as he extricated himself from a warm tangle of long limbs. He got dressed as quietly as he could in the clothes he’d arrived in - he was pretty sure those were real - and went downstairs.

And opened the front door... into the middle of downtown Central City. 

He turned back to look at the West house behind him. Strained his head to the right, but there was only the usual view of the suburban residential street out of the living room window.

“This place is fucked up,” he muttered to himself, and stepped out onto Main Street.

When he turned back, the house had disappeared behind him.

“Could you _ please _ stop doing that? You’re creepier than the Oculus,” he snapped into the silence. 

Of course, there was no reply.

There was almost no sound at all. It was eerie. Len had grown up in Central City. From his early pickpocketing years to later decades running crews and planning heists, he’d had to get to know this place better than most of its denizens. His life often depended on it. And he’d never seen the city this empty. A light morning breeze was the only source of movement, lifting a few pieces of trash, here and there. Otherwise, there wasn’t a sign of life around.

Len began to walk, passing landmarks he’d known growing up that were long gone in his present. _ Something _ led him in a particular direction, until he stopped outside the Motorcar diner. “Really?” he snapped at the sky. “I get it - you’re trying to tell me something. You and the Oculus both. Well why don’t you both get on with it and say it in English, instead of this symbolic crap I don’t understand?”

Again, no answer. Sighing, he pushed open the door to the diner.

Meena Dhawan was sitting at a booth, nursing a steaming cup of coffee. Her eyes were a little red, but she looked okay. “Hi, Cold,” she said without looking up.

Quietly, he slipped in opposite her.

“Ask the air for what you want,” she advised, raising an eyebrow. “It’s really something.” 

“Hot chocolate,” he said to the ceiling, pretending he was just back on the Waverider, just making a request of Gideon. And to think that he’d considered Gideon the height of creepiness once. What he wouldn't give to hear her reassuring, cheerful voice now. 

A moment later, the drink appeared in front of him, complete with a good helping of mini-marshmallows floating on top. “Hmm.” He took a sip and hummed approvingly. “Excellent chocolate.”

“This is the best coffee I ever had,” Meena replied in a flat voice.

He studied her. She didn’t look hurt, or even scared, but something had clearly happened. “D’you wanna talk about it?” he asked, not even hoping she’d say no.

She coughed out a laugh, dull eyes still fixed on her coffee. “They didn’t hurt me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Good, but it wasn’t.” He blew out a breath, trying to catch her eye. The kid needed reassurance, he figured. And it wasn't like he was entirely unqualified. “Look, Meena… I’ve been where you are. Terrifying new powers, and then faced with the source of them. Except I hadn’t pissed off that source. Well - not much.”

She shrugged, finally looking up at him. “They’re not mad at me. I don’t even know how to explain it.” She swallowed. “They want me to do better. I think I‘ve… disappointed them.”

_ You’re gonna do better, boy. I’m sick of you being a disappointment. _

He swallowed down the surge of rage. This was about Meena. But he couldn’t help muttering, “They gonna give you a way to do that, or are they gonna abandon you to the Negative shit that’s poisoning every atom of you, and just sit on their almighty asses and criticize?”

She just shrugged. Her eyes were drifting around the diner. “This is Central City from the 1980s. Right down to the songs on the radio.” She gestured to the counter, where an old-style tape player was playing Billy Joel, and met Len’s eye with a fierce, curious gaze. “So this place is for you, not me. Why?”

He sighed, slouching back in his seat. The old leather behind him was familiar, in a bittersweet way. “My grandfather used to bring me here, when I was little. Me and my sister.” Something was breaking in him. Had been for a long time. He was getting so tired of the evasion. Meena was a good’un, and she deserved an honest answer. “My father was... not really worth that title. Gramps was a good guy, though.” He looked around the diner, where he’d felt so safe when he was so young. Where he’d killed a man, when he was not much older. His first murder of many. “And then a few years later, I did something very bad here.” He laughed reflexively, sipping his chocolate. “Did some very bad things in a lot of places. And I’ve been going back to these places, thanks to the joys of time travel...” 

Meena nodded, her eyes wide, apparently interested. 

“I don’t know why,” he admitted. “Something’s trying to tell me something, and I don’t know what it is.”

She hummed. “And have you tried asking?”

“Have I—” he started, ready to make fun of the idea, and then he stopped.

_ Had _ he?

Meena’s gaze was back on her half-empty coffee. “My father was a good man,” she said, a little distantly. “I never knew my mom, but I only ever heard good things about her too. If they’d been around when I got my powers, I—” She cut off, shaking her head. “I have a sister - only family I’ve got left. She believed the crap she’d heard on the news about metas, how we’re all dangerous and evil, shit like that.” She snorted. “And then I went and proved her right.” 

He grunted in reply. “That sucks. Sorry.”

She didn’t answer. Her face was scrunched up in thought. “You were a villain, right?”

He waved his hand dramatically around the diner. “You hear what I just said? ‘Bout as bad a villain as they get.”

“Okay. So what made you wanna—”

“...do better?” He shared a wry grin with her. “Honestly?” 

Outside, familiar footsteps were approaching. 

Len could have given Meena a few answers to her question, and they’d all have been true. A lot of things had made him want to be a better man. The Legends, and everything that happened with Mick. The Oculus. Even killing his father, in a roundabout way. But one answer was truer than all the rest. 

“One person,” he answered. “Just one, who thought I could be better.” He quirked his lips at his hot chocolate. “And then two people who did.” 

Behind him, a bell jingled, as the diner door opened.

Sometimes he still couldn’t believe his luck. The universe that he’d once been so sure hated him, that gave him Lewis Snart for a father, found a million ways to make him feel like all his choices in life had been taken away from him, and then let him die at the Oculus... also gave him Barry and Iris. And if time reversed itself now, dropped him back at the beginning of his life again, he’d willingly go through all of that shit again, if he only knew he’d find them at the end. 

He raised an eyebrow at Meena. “Here’s a tip, kid. Find one person who thinks you’re worth more than the shit you’ve done, and let them care about you. Only thing that’ll make you wanna change is people who believe you can be more than you were.” Without looking around, he reached up a hand.

Barry grasped it.

Meena grinned up at him over Len’s shoulder. “Morning, Flash.”

A yawning Barry slid into the seat beside Len. “You guys ever feel like your lives are stranger than any fiction you could imagine?” 

“No. My life is a snooze-fest,” Meena deadpanned. “I’m thinking of learning to knit. You know, for something to do.”

Barry raised an eyebrow at Len. “She’s funny.”

_ “Hilarious.” _He waved at the counter. “And, morning. Do you want any—” he started, and paused.

Meena had zoned out, with her cup to her lips. Her eyes were distant, as though she was listening to something.

Barry leaned forward. “Meena?” 

She blinked. “They want to talk to us, guys. Now.”

Barry was wide-eyed, shaking his head at her. “How do you _ do _ that?”

She shrugged. “Here, everything’s clear. I basically know what you both are thinking. With them, it’s more like feeling a really scary presence. I’m pretty sure it’s still deciding whether it wants to crown me the next chosen one, or - I dunno, drop me into the Negative Speed Force and leave me there.” She sighed, sliding out of the booth. “Come on. They’re calling us.”

And she was off, leaving Barry raising his eyebrows at Len, who just shrugged back.

He was suddenly getting the feeling that this was not going to be much fun.

* * *

Len had been hoping it would be his mother again.

Instead, he found himself face-to-face with a red-headed woman. If old family photos and his glimpses into Barry’s timeline hadn’t already given him a clue to who she was, then Barry’s sudden stillness beside him definitely did. He resisted the urge to say, ‘Hello, Mrs. Allen,’ as politely as Barry might have.

They had found themselves in a replica of STAR Labs. It was dark and silent, but accurate in every detail. Len was just about done with this creepy shit, but he suspected that now was not the time to complain about the accommodation to the possibly-omnipotent force that was creating it. 

Barry’s eyes had widened, and he stepped up towards the Speed Force avatar. “Hi,” he said, his voice a little gruffer than usual.

“Hello, Barry,” she answered, and her voice was rich with all the love a mother could feel for her son.

Len remembered Barry’s explanation. _ They’re not our friends and family, but they sort of _ are _ the people we love, too. _Right now Barry was very obviously seeing his mother in the Speed Force avatar, his eyes full of tears as he moved to hug her. Len had expected that kind of reaction from his tender-hearted speedster, but he hadn’t anticipated just how much the Speed Force clearly adored Barry in return.

And all at once, it hit him. The Speed Force was never going to risk Barry’s death.

“You’re not going to let me die,” he realised, all at once - and how could he have been so _ stupid? _He glanced at Barry, still wrapped in her embrace. “Not if it would mean risking your greatest speedster.”

She inclined her head towards him. “No.” It was an admission and an apology all at once. This ancient power, more unearthly than anything Len had ever found in the old editions of Lovecraft he collected, had changed its mind. Because it loved someone.

(how very human of it)

“So are you gonna help me?”

“With what?” she asked, still smiling, and now she was just being irritating for effect.

He rolled his eyes at her. “You do remember the reason we’re here, yeah? The solution to this Manhattan mess.”

“You must go back to the beginning,” she answered.

Len swallowed down the urge to throw something. “What exactly do you think I’ve been doing?” he snapped.

Barry pulled away from his mother and stepped back, and Len felt a hand on his shoulder. “Just listen,” Barry advised, in his ear.

Barry’s touch was grounding, and he breathed a little easier. His speedster - his anchor.

Okay. Leonard Snart was too much of a mess right now to get this done. Captain Cold, though...

Meena was watching him with an odd look on her face. He raised an eyebrow at her.

And pulled up his goggles.

Wandering over to the wall at the back of the lab, he slouched against it. “The beginning,” he said, in the best approximation of his old drawl he could manage. The show of confidence was pretty convincing, even if he did say so himself. “That’s been the theme since the start of this, hmm? And no one’s been telling me anything, and I’m done trying to figure out this shit on my own.” Lifting his goggles on top of his head, he aimed his best smirk at the Speed Force. “Show me.”

Barry’s mother flung out an arm... and the gray floor of STAR Labs went spinning away. 

They were were whirling out amongst the stars, looking down at Len’s birds-eye view of Time, laid out in front of him. A web, dark and three-dimensional, spread out below him in a thousand... strings. A dot, at the center of it all. Manhattan.

Beside him, Barry drew in a sharp breath. But Len didn’t have time to be distracted. 

“There are countless ways this could turn out. You get to decide what you’ll do, Leonard. You need to choose.”

As his eyes roamed the mess of timelines, he caught sight of a thread, far below him, that was _ her _ timeline. Everything that had happened to her since Len had saved her life.

He turned resolutely away, back to the timelines that clustered around Manhattan. It took him less than a second to find the options he was looking for. To pull on the right strings.

God, but there were _ thousands _ of timelines leading in and out of Manhattan’s. This thing could go so many ways.

In the dark, Barry’s hand found Len’s. “This is what it looks like to you?”

Len spared him a nod and a smile, and turned back to the Speed Force, planting his feet.

(on nothing)

“I need to understand.”

She nodded approval. “Then go and ask.”

He kept his eyes tightly shut, and did something he hadn’t done yet, in all the chaos and confusion since this started. Something he hadn’t done for a long time.

He reached out for the Oculus.

* * *

It was always a bit like tuning a radio. Sometimes, snatches of sound would filter through, moments from the past or future. Sometimes, he’d be scanning and he’d hit a timeline, and could choose to follow it down - or just keep tuning. And sometimes, if he was lucky, a Voice would slip into his mind.

_ That took you longer than expected. _

Len blinked, and said aloud, “I didn’t know if I could reach you here.”

_ This is the one place you always can. _

Len took a breath, and admitted something he’d been avoiding. “It’s been hard to reach you. Since I—”

_ Since you changed Time. _

“Yes.” 

He’d known. The Oculus had told him that it could change everything between them. He’d done what he had to, saved his mother, regardless.

_ That is why you did not ask for help? Why you came to the Speed Force? _

The unspoken _ instead of to me _hung in the vast reaches of space and Time between them. Len shrugged. “I can’t survive long in your dimension. Not long enough to hide out from Manhattan.”

_ But still. You did not ask. _

He just nodded. “There are so many timelines. How do I find the ones I need?”

_ Go back, back, back. Back to the beginning. _

Len sighed. “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

There was an echo in his mind, something like laughter. “Let me show you,” the Oculus said.

It was Len’s only warning.

A flood of images engulfed him, knocking him back hard like a wild wave. It didn’t feel quite real, but it was far more vivid than any dream he’d ever had.

He was standing at the Oculus Wellspring, holding up his cold gun, ready to clock Mick over the head.

Len stared at the timeline-echo of Mick.

The timeline-echo of Mick stared back at him. “Go on then, Snart,” he said helpfully. “You did it before. Time to make a choice again.”

_ Oh, no fucking way. _“You saying I have to sacrifice myself? Again?”

Mick’s laughter boomed out, an eerie echo around the hall of the Wellspring. “Nah. Not your _ life, _anyway. Been there, done that.” He bumped Len’s shoulder, and pointed into the swirling Oculus. “This is where it all started, ain’t it? Go on. Look.”

Len turned, forcing himself to gaze into the Eye. 

(it hurt. it always hurt.)

The future-images poured into him from the Oculus, one by one, till he was overwhelmed and overflowing. There were so many possible choices… and he was the one who had to choose.

He fought one last wave of temptation to turn, run away, and never look back.

Forcing his eyes away from the rush of images, he blinked at the face the Oculus was wearing. It had never appeared to him as someone he loved before. Seemed it was learning from its Speed Force cousin - bad influences on each other. But now Len understood why the Speed Force did this for Barry. It made dealing with ancient cosmic forces, and the strings of the universe that they pulled, just a little bit easier for a fragile human being.

“There’s no more destiny,” he said to his friend.

_There are no strings on me._

“Nope.” Oculus-Mick shrugged in an unspoken _ we-told-you-so. _

“I have to choose.”

“Finally, he gets it,” said Oculus-Mick, rolling his eyes.

Len stared back into the bright blue Eye, still cycling through images of the future.

“You know how to focus on the timelines you’re looking for,” Mick said. “Trust yourself.”

Len did just that. 

And found himself staring at flickering images of lost children of the Oculus. 

“There will be others,” he murmured, parroting the cryptic messages he’d been hearing for months. “But… why me?” he asked, pretending he didn’t sound choked up.

Oculus-Mick shrugged. “For you, it was Barry and Iris. You hardly knew how to ask for help, but you did. These kids who’ll come after you - they got no one. No one else who can show them how to be found.”

“I don’t know how to be a hero.” He could never have admitted that to the Oculus if it hadn’t been wearing his best friend’s face. “Not the way the Flash is.”

Mick smiled - a look of complete trust that Len definitely didn’t deserve. “You don’t gotta be the world’s hero. All you have to be is…” He gestured at the glowing blue canvas. “Theirs.”

Len shook his head at the image of the Oculus Wellspring, exploding, over and over. “You’ll die.”

The Oculus shrugged, and it was no longer speaking in Mick’s harsh tones. The Voice echoed sadly in Len’s head. _ All things must die, Leonard Snart. Not even the first forces of the multiverse are immortal. _

“But if there’s no destiny anymore…” He was doing the math in his head. “If I just _ choose _ a timeline… Anything could happen. What if I destroy Time?”

Mick raised an eyebrow. “What if you save it?” 

Alternative timelines danced before his eyes, in his head, everywhere. Timelines where Manhattan killed him. Timelines where Manhattan killed _ Barry. _ Timelines where he was the last to go, watching the end of everything.

Timelines where the plan worked. 

_ That risk cannot be avoided, _ said the Voice in his head. _ But inaction is certain disaster for you. For Time. So choose. _

“Now,” Mick added, with a grin.

And the dial turned, and the connection dissolved into static again.

* * *

It was like fighting his way back up from underwater, blurry images and dull, echoing sounds resolving slowly into reality.

The Speed Force avatar who looked like Nora Allen was looking at him.

Barry was looking at him.

Meena was looking at him.

They were all waiting for him to do something.

Len breathed. 

Somewhere, on another world in a vast multiverse, he was still running away. He wondered if there was a single iteration of himself in the multiverse who hadn’t spent his life running.

It was time to stop.

(time. sad waste of a pun he was too busy to make)

He raised the cold gun in a vertical line against himself. An old, comforting shield against a capricious world where, sometimes, he was still the only one he could trust. 

“Here’s how this is going to go,” he said.

* * *

He outlined his plan in the barest terms possible. When he was done, the Speed Force was wide-eyed, nodding slightly. Surprised. Pleased, even.

He felt a strange rush of something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Pride? Weird.

“Wow,” Meena breathed, more impressed than he wanted. He fought the old irritation for the thousandth time - he wasn’t her damn hero. 

(but would it be so bad if he was?)

Barry was just silent.

Len turned to him, head tilted in regret. “I know it’s risky.”

Shaking his head, Barry took a step towards him, his hand reaching for the back of Len’s neck. He was speedster-warm and _ safe. _“This is madness,” Barry said softly.

Len grinned. “That’s why I like it.”

“You’re really going to let Manhattan destroy the Oculus?”

“I ain’t _ letting _ anyone do anything. I’m taking the power back, Barry. _ I _ destroy the Oculus.”

The speedster-warm hand tightened on the back of his neck. “What are the chances it will kill you?”

He couldn’t stand the fear in Barry’s eyes. He didn’t want to put that there. But he’d already chosen. Barry would have made the same choice - had done, a thousand times. Putting the world before himself, his family, _ Iris. _

Len had never understood, until now, just how terrible those choices had been.

He focused on the safe warmth on the back of his neck. “Once I do this thing... I die in 67% of resulting timelines.” He shrugged. “Not bad. I’d have pulled a heist with those odds.”

Barry let him go. Walked a little way away.

Len waited. He liked to think he knew Barry pretty well by now - and it was ironic, really. What the fastest man alive needed most was time.

“Is there anything we can do to swing the odds your way?” Barry was leaning against the replica wall of the Cortex like he needed it to hold him up, staring into the room just beyond it. 

He shrugged again, aiming for nonchalant, cool, and very Captain Cold. “Maybe. And I know there are gonna be consequences.” He swallowed, remembering the flood of images. “Some weird ones. But Barry—” 

Len followed him to the wall, dropping his voice. The creepy Speed Force could no doubt hear them everywhere in its domain, but it gave them the illusion of privacy.

He took Barry’s hand, his fingers whispering across warm knuckles. They’d be out of this dimension soon, and then physical connection with him would be a risk again. Len had never been fond of touch. Keeping himself safe had been more important than human contact, for so long. But people change. And before he risked his life and the multiverse in a reckless attempt to save Time, he needed Barry to know, in his own love language, how much Len loved him.

“I’m done letting other people control me, Barry. Been done with that for a long time.” He dropped into a whisper. “Please. Give me a chance to try.”

Barry’s slow nod and quietly adoring smile was more than Len could handle and all that he would ever need.

“Get us out of here,” Len said to the Speed Force.

”In a minute,” it replied. “Fast Track.” Meena glanced up, blinking. She seemed endlessly surprised that this great power was interested in her at all. Barry’s mother had already morphed into the quiet, kind facade of Meena’s father. “Meena. Do you want us to purge the Negative Speed Force from your system?”

There were too many moments when Len saw a younger version of himself in this canny kid. So proficient in self-preservation that it was a martial art to her - and under all that, just a child who’d been swallowed whole by a cruel world. In a very small voice, she asked, “Will it hurt?” 

If the Speed Force had had a body, Len would have been getting ready to kick its ass. The kid had been hurt enough.

“No.” The Speed Force avatar was staring hard at her. “But it will, if we don’t purge it. It will keep on hurting. Not always, but enough.”

Len bit down on the urge to give advice. This wasn’t about him... even if he was far too familiar with powers that would always hurt.

Meena’s eyes had narrowed at the Speed Force avatar. “Will I lose the things I can do? The psychic stuff, with speedsters? Seeing their after-images, knowing what they’ll become?”

“Probably,” her father admitted.

The kid pulled herself up to her full height - all something-like-five-feet of it - and it was like looking at Barry Allen. All that vulnerable bravery, all in the service of people she’d never even met and loved anyway. “Then, no. I don’t want you to take it away.”

“Meena.” Len couldn’t stay quiet anymore - he had to know she was sure. Life changing decisions, and all. “They’re offering you a chance to get rid of the worst shit in your powers. Think about it, before you tell them to fuck off.”

She shot him a sad smile. “Would you? _ Did _ you?”

An after-image from his timeline bubbled up inside him. The Oculus, offering him the choice to give up his powers, or to live with them. And Len… choosing.

“Then you get it,” Meena said, and her smile was wry, as if reading his thoughts. She probably was. “How would I help people, if I let myself become someone else?” She shrugged. “There’s something I’m meant to do. Call it instinct, but I think I’mma need my powers for it.” She nodded at her father. “All of them. The good parts and the crappy ones.”

The Speed Force smiled like a parent at graduation day. Meena’s own smile had more of an edge to it.

Len just shook his head again, wishing he’d ever been half as brave as this kid.

“You okay?” Barry asked quietly, stepping up next to him,

He cleared his throat and whispered back, “I’ve been upstaged by a teenager who’s a better damn hero than I’ll ever be.”

Barry quirked an eyebrow at him. “I thought you didn’t like that word.”

“Oh, shut up,” he snapped, aiming a smirk at him.

Barry snorted and patted him on the back. 

Len was way past done with this place. He raised his cold gun again. “Hey, Speed Force. We got our answers. Gonna send us home, or what?”

The avatar, who was Nora Allen again, flashed a smile at him. “You’re a grateful one, aren’t you?”

Ooh, a slight to his honor. He glanced at Barry, who’d gained a shit-eating smirk of his own, and tried again. “Right. I know I owe you, Ma’am. You ever want me to make good on that debt, you just let me know.”

Beside him, Barry dropped his face into his hands. “Please don’t tell them that,” he said, muffled.

There was a flash of speed and lighting in his head, over an echoing reply. “Oh, you’ll do just that, Leonard. You will help speedsters too. It’s not just the lost children of the Oculus who need to be found.” The Speed Force let out a rich, warm laugh. “The Oculus thinks you’re going to call them _ Time Rogues. _ It does _ not _ approve.”

Len blinked, ignoring Barry’s snort, and filed all of that away to think about later. “Cute,” he said, with a spin around on his heel that was all Captain Cold. “Regardless, I think it’s time you got us out of here. Got miles to go before we sleep.”

Barry’s mother had narrowed her eyes at him, stepping around to look right at him. She’d clearly been a formidable woman - the real her, anyway. She reached out and cupped his cheek. “You were hoping to see her again.”

He swallowed, nodded—

—And looked up into his mother’s face. For the last time, if the shape of his timeline was telling the truth. And he knew it wasn’t really her... but the gift of being able to look into her eyes, just once more, was worth all the lies he’d ever been told. “Thank you,” he said, oddly short of words, for once in his damn life.

She smiled, her hand still warm on his cheek. “You’re a good boy, Leo,” his mother’s voice said, her light Ethiopian accent still so exactly _ right _ that it would have been chilling if he’d really believed it was her.

But this was close enough.

“Not sure about that,” he murmured, fighting one more wave of nostalgic melancholy as he leaned into her touch. 

She smiled. “You are. You just needed someone to remind you.”

“That’s what I keep trying to tell him,” Barry observed wryly, quietly.

Her eyes snapped over to Barry’s, and she smiled. “Don’t stop.”

And then... she was gone.

Len cleared his throat in the sudden, silent darkness. “Come on, Speed Force. We’ve got an Iris to get home to.”

Barry’s hand was tight in his, holding him up as whatever they were standing on began to rumble and shudder. “I’ve got you,” he said. “Both of you. Don’t let go. The Speed Force is letting them through.”

“Who—?” Len started.

And then a glaring bright hole in reality tore itself open, with Vibe standing on the other side of it. And beside him, the only other person in the universe that Len wanted to see, wielding a basic but still badass version of his own cold gun.

It was the sexiest damn thing he’d ever seen.

She lowered the gun, a slightly embarrassed look flickering across her face. “Prototype,” she explained. “From STAR Labs storage.”

“Ah,” he said, stepping through the portal and into the speed lab, letting go of Barry’s hand so he could get to her. “And why, exactly, do you have it?”

She shrugged apologetically. “Cold. It’s the only thing that can hold its own against speed.”

“Is it _ really?” _Len drawled, taking her face in his hands. “What a revelation.”

Cisco cleared his throat and beckoned Meena away. “C’mon, kid. Let’s leave the lovebirds alone, eh? Let’s go find Frost. Hey, it’s Tuesday - you can join in our weekly weird meta hang out.”

As they headed for the door, Len heard her asking, hesitant but excited, “Can I see your lab?” 

“Thought you’d never ask. You’ll love it. I got some of the most advanced engineering projects you’ll ever...”

Len waited for their voices to fade away before turning back to Iris, while Barry hovered behind him. He raised an eyebrow at the prototype cold gun again.

She mock-scowled at him. “We didn’t know if it was ever going to let you out. You’ve been in there for days!”

“So you just... mounted a rescue?”

She grinned, tilting her head bashfully. “We hot-wired some of Cisco’s dimensional tech to get us into the Speed Force. You think it was silly?”

“I think it was _ ridiculously _ brave. Only you, Iris West-Allen. Only you. Also, please kiss me immediately.”

And, while Barry’s arms wrapped around her from the other side, she did just that.


	12. Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The calm before the Time storm...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Mina for excellent beta reading.

“There’s three things we need to do.”

Leonard stood at the window of the STAR Labs lounge, facing out towards the starlit sky. Iris was sitting on the arm of a sofa, with Barry tense and silent on the seat beside her. The lounge around her was full of people trying to talk at once. She just kept her eyes on Leonard.

Without turning around, he raised a hand. “I _ said, _there’s three things we need to do. You wanna know, or you wanna run into this thing blind?”

Behind him, Team Flash and the Legends dropped into silence.

“Thank you,” Leonard murmured, and now he did turn around. He’d abandoned his black supersuit for the parka, pulled tight around his shoulders, his hand on the cold gun at his hip. _ Security blankets, _ Iris thought, and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the thought. 

“First,” Leonard continued, “we need to keep him from getting to STAR Labs. There’s gonna be people here, and I wouldn’t put it past him to hurt them just to get to me.” He locked eyes with Iris. “I’m counting on you to handle that one.” She nodded back. He held her gaze for a moment before spinning on his heel and beginning a slow, overdramatic walk across the lounge.

He really was pulling out all the Captain Cold stops to hold himself together, Iris realised. It hurt to watch.

“Second, I want the Waverider on standby as backup. I have no idea if it can hurt him, but he’s sensitive to all this time shit, so it’s possible.”

_ Time shit, _Ray mouthed at the ceiling. Leonard either didn’t notice, or ignored him. Iris winced away a burst of irritation. The Legends were a unique kind of mess, but they all coped with crises in their own dysfunctional ways. Ray was as scared as the rest of them, and Len probably knew it.

“Where do you need us?” Sara was asking.

Stopping at the bar beside her, Leonard tilted his head at his captain, his old friend. Iris had seen him defer to Sara before, and not usually just because of rank. He’d long ago learned the value in following the best leader in the room. But that was in situations where the stakes hadn’t been about _ him. _She was stepping back and letting him make the decisions now. His grateful smile at her was fleeting, but it was there. ”In the sky, right above us,” he answered. “I have no idea what kind of firepower he might bring. Be ready to provide a distraction - or become one.” Sara said something quiet in agreement, and he nodded.

Then there was a thick moment of silence as Leonard turned, stepped up towards Barry, and sank into a crouch in front of his lover. Iris swallowed at the look they shared, the clear moment of vulnerability. This wasn’t exactly something Leonard showed to both of his teams on the regular.

“Third thing. Barry, I need you by my side. That means leaving Vibe, Frost and Ralph here to defend STAR Labs - and the city, if Manhattan gets too cranky.” Barry’s gaze dropped to the floor in an old, familiar sign he was shutting down, and Leonard’s voice dropped. “Barry,” he said again, low enough that only he and Iris would hear him. “I wish I could give you military-level strategy, or science. Wish I could tell you in your language why I think this is a good plan. I’ve only got mine. A hunch, and some shit I saw at the Oculus. I know science beats mysticism for you any day—”

Barry’s head snapped back up, and there was a twinkle in his eyes. He shook his head. “Didn’t I tell you, once, that they’re the same thing?“ As Leonard smiled, Barry added, “Plus, this Manhattan guy looks to be all about the science. Maybe you’ve seen a bit more of the mystical strings being pulled behind all of that.”

Leonard grinned at him, grabbing his hand and squeezing it so quickly that most of the room wouldn’t have seen it. “Sure hope so, or this is all gonna fall apart really fast.”

“Nah,” Barry said with a sad smile back at him. “We’ve got something he doesn’t.”

Just for a second, Leonard’s eyes widened. Then he raised his eyebrows at Barry, winked at Iris, and stood up. “I want to thank you all for doing this for me. I don’t know if I can win this thing,” he admitted to the crowd of watching, determined faces. His friends, Iris remembered, with a thrill of something like hope. “But I’m— _ we’re _ damn well gonna try.” He shrugged, the hint of a smirk on his face. “And, well - you all know me. Got a few aces up my sleeve, if we need ‘em.”

Cisco coughed. _ “Time travel _aces?” 

Leonard tilted his head. “Among other things, yes.” His eyes went a little distant as he added, “The Oculus has been teaching an old dog a few new tricks.”

There was something he wasn’t telling them. Iris didn’t think she wanted to know, but she was going to have to ask, and soon.

“Well?” Len snapped at the gathered crowd, none of whom had moved.

There was silence. Every eye was on Leonard. Something in him seemed to falter, and he turned to Iris with a _ help me _ look.

She stood up. “All right, gang. You’ve got your assignments. Legends, Sara will give you a full briefing. Team Flash, I want you in the Cortex in ten minutes. We’re doing this today, people, so don’t just stand around like meerkats.” When they still didn’t move, she pointed at the door. “Go!”

The ragtag bunch of superheroes and vigilantes snapped to attention, marching off in the direction of the Cortex or the STAR Labs car park, respectively.

(Once, Sara had thanked them for always saving her a Waverider-sized parking space. Iris had smiled politely and not mentioned the cost of hanging onto the land just for them.)

That left Iris, Barry and Leonard in the lounge. Leonard was watching the departing heroes, his eyes a little wide. “They’re doing this for me,” he murmured, in an incredulous tone. “All of them... even the ones who hardly know me.” He coughed a chuckle. “Even the ones who do.”

Iris smiled, not knowing quite what to say to that. “Surprised?”

“Yes.” Then he turned to look at her, a more familiar smug look back on his face. “Score out of ten for cat-herding skills, boss?”

Iris grinned and patted him on the back. “You’re getting better. Six?”

He rolled his eyes. “You do remember I used to lead the best criminal gang this city has ever seen, hmm?”

Her arm came up around his shoulders. Even in her high-heeled shoes, she had to stand on her tiptoes to reach. He was worth it. “Hon, you’d have to have run a _country_ to prepare you for leading the Legends.” She reached out a hand to Barry, who had been worryingly quiet for the duration of the meeting. “Come on, guys. Things to do.”

Barry stood up, taking her hand. Damp hazel eyes met hers, then flickered to Leonard. “Do you really think we can do this? We know so little about this guy and what he can do, and he doesn’t look like he’s gonna stop till he’s—”

“Scarlet,” Leonard interrupted, holding Barry’s reluctant gaze. He reached out his own hand to the speedster. “Do you trust me?” 

Shutting up, Barry nodded. Leonard lifted an eyebrow that he hoped would communicate something like ‘well then’.

The three of them stood there for a minute, holding hands in their little private circle, while Iris willed the moment to last forever. With partners like hers, Time itself could stand still... couldn’t it?

It didn’t. 

They headed to the Cortex, reluctance evident in their every slow step down the corridor, side by side.

* * *

Later, they set up crude barriers against a few key doors at STAR Labs. Upstairs, Cisco was establishing himself as their more sophisticated gatekeeper at the main entrance, and Frost was already stationed at the Cortex door. But there was no way to know if Manhattan could mind-control an army of zombies - or worse, metas who could overpower the STAR Labs electronic door locks. Barry thought Len had been a little too specific with that last comment, but he’d said nothing. “Besides,” Len had drawled, “ain’t like you guys have ever had the best security, is it?” The meeting had then briefly descended into name-calling, mostly between Len and Cisco, before Iris had got them back on track.

Barry watched as Len paused halfway through shifting a desk in front of the door to the Speed Lab, where he’d been dragging it over from a pile of furniture Cisco had portaled out of a store room for them. He was listening to something. Barry recognised that expression. “The Oculus?” Barry asked.

Len blinked the slightly glazed look out of his eyes, nodding.

“Glad you’re talking to it again.” That got him an eyebrow raise. “What?” Barry aimed a look at him. “You think I didn’t notice that you hadn’t gone all...” He waved his hand in front of his face, attempting a distant look that got him an eye roll from Len. “You know what I mean.” Giving himself some thinking time, Barry shifted into Flashtime, hefted up a chair, and zipped it over to pile it on top of the desk. “I could tell you’d stopped communicating with it for a while there,” he continued, when he was back at the same speed as Len. “I just didn’t know why.”

“Well, now you do,” Len said, a touch of bitterness in his voice. “Did a stupid thing, upset the balance of Time, yada yada, big blue giant.” He waved a hand around to indicate their current predicament.

Barry tutted, which raised a shocked eyebrow out of Len, and waved a finger at him. “Uh-uh. You start up with all that defensive stuff again, I’m gonna get seriously annoyed.” When Len didn’t answer, Barry stepped into his line of sight. “Len.” But his lover’s eyes had gone distant, in a whole different way from when he was talking to the Oculus. “Len, you know we’re forgiven you, right? And not just for changing the timeline...”

A slow nod.

“So why haven’t you forgiven yourself?”

Sucking in a breath, Len muttered, “Think it’s that easy?”

Barry pursed his lips. “I think it could be.” Len didn’t answer. “Look, we might have ten minutes left to live.”

“Optimistic,” Len murmured.

Ignoring him, Barry kept talking. “So let me say one thing, okay?” He refused to break at the sudden look of terror on Len’s face. “So what if there are things you don’t regret about the past? Are you going back there?” 

Len snorted. “Yeah, weekly.” 

“You know what I mean.” Barry jostled Len’s shoulder. “Are you planning on going back to being a villain again?” 

He shook his head. “No, but— Maybe that’s still ‘cause it would make you hate me, not because I’m a good person.” 

Sighing, Barry leaned back against the desk, watching Len’s fidgeting hands. “I told you there was good in you, long before even you knew that. You’ve proven it over and over again… but I’m still not sure you believe it.”

“Maybe I don’t,” Len breathed out, and it sounded like his toughest admission yet.

Barry leaned back harder, watching Len’s reactions. “Do you wanna hear a scientific theory about good and evil?” At Len’s confused blink, Barry kept going. “Okay, here’s my theory. Good isn’t a thing you are or aren’t. It’s something you do. And being a villain or— or the other thing— isn’t about how you feel. It’s about doing choosing to do good. One good thing at a time. _ Every _ time.” 

Len was silent for a moment, his eyes fixed on a nasty crack marring the lab floor, left behind from a recent meta attack. At last, he said, “Iris said something like that.” 

Barry nodded, because of course she had. “Well, she’s always worth listening to.” He reached out and took Len’s chin in his hand. It was a risky move even without the potential time travel consequences, but Len didn’t flinch - just looked up, trusting eyes meeting Barry’s. “Len, it doesn’t matter what your motivation is. You just gotta do one good thing at a time. Like _one day a time,_ you know? That’s how you start making up for the past - even if you’ll never finish. One good thing at a time.” 

Len was still gazing at him. “When did you get this philosophical, Scarlet?” 

“I’ve had some time to think, recently.” Barry grinned, pulling away from him. “And... the Speed Force had some things to say to me.”

“Oh, really?” The smug head tilt and smirk was kind of adorable - not that Barry would ever say that to Len’s face.

“Oh, shut up,” Barry warned cheerfully, getting another snort from Len.

Len, who had already turned away. “Guess I’m about to do just that. Except it’s gonna be a hell of a lot of _ incredibly risky _ good things at once.” He shrugged, a faraway look in his eyes. “And even that doesn’t make up for much, does it?”

Barry paused with his hand on a low table. He still didn’t have an answer to that one. But he’d be damned if he was going to let Len drown in self-pity hours before he went out to risk his life to save not just himself, but other people too. “Len… Tell me something?”

“Anything,” Len shot back, apparently without thinking.

“Fuck the bad things you don’t regret. What are the good things you don’t?” 

Len peered at him as Barry passed him another chair. “What?” 

“Tell me some good things you did that you don’t regret. Top three?” 

Len’s gaze narrowed. “Why?” 

Barry folded his arms, trying not to roll his eyes. “Just do it, Len.” He was expecting a fight, but Len was already biting his lip, thinking. Len really did trust him, Barry realised, with a shock of gratitude. 

Something was passing across his face, something soft and nostalgic that Barry wasn’t used to seeing there. “Raising Lisa,” he said quietly, with a little smile. He lifted his eyebrows at the pile of furniture. “I may have been a shit brother, but…” 

When he trailed off, Barry gave him a half-smile. “Still a better parent than Lewis?” 

Len blinked at him. “That better not have been a reference to some kind of meme, Barry.” 

“Of course not,” he said quickly. “Okay, two more.” 

There was no protest this time. Len just stared off into the middle distance - scanning his own timeline, maybe - before he said, “Saving Mick’s life, at the Oculus. I’d do it again. Any timeline, every time.” 

Barry nodded, suppressing a smile at the sincerity in Len’s tone. He would probably never understand Len’s messed-up friendship with Mick, but he could appreciate how much it meant to him. “Last one?” 

Len paused, a soft smile starting to form. Taking a step back into Barry’s space, he brought his hand carefully up to his face. “Falling in love with you and Iris,” Len murmured, and then he was kissing him.

Barry let himself get thoroughly lost in the kiss for a moment. He didn’t want to think about how it could be their last. _ It won’t be, _ he made himself think. _ We’re going to win this thing, and no one is going to have to sacrifice themselves to do it. _

He wasn’t losing Len. Not again. Not ever. 

But a few too-short seconds later, he was blinking at warm blue eyes. “They were all good things, Len. You’re a good guy.” Good enough to do this, he didn’t say. Enough of a hero to save yourself and all of us, he definitely didn’t say.

Len shrugged, but it wasn’t self-deprecating. “I don’t know about that. But I know you make me want to be one.” 

Barry smiled. “I’ll take it.”

There was a crackle from the computer on the other side of the room. “Guys?”

Speeding over, Barry pressed a button. “Here, Iris.”

“It’s time. Are you gonna share the plan now, Leonard?”

Len raised his voice to say, “Yeah. Get Vibe to bring you down here. Barry and I ain’t leaving this room until I make my stand.” He glanced up at Barry. “And you both need to hear this.” Looking down at his watch, that big timepiece he’d worn for about as long as Barry had known him, he tapped it, three times. “I know what I have to do now.”

“Is it going to work?” Barry asked, when Iris couldn’t overhear anymore.

“Sure hope so,” he shot back, his voice as cocky and confident as Captain Cold ever sounded. 

But when he looked back up, there was a silent apology in his eyes that was all Barry needed to see, and the last thing he wanted to. 

Len didn’t know.

_  
Can you feel me now_   
_ That I’m vulnerable in oh so many ways  
Oh and I’ll never change_


	13. Present

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Len makes his stand - backed up by Barry, Iris and some surprise allies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What with this being the big action chapter, there’s a couple of very brief whumpy moments - nothing awful, but check the endnotes if you want to skip a sentence or two.
> 
> I’m predicting two chapters to go after this... but I always have trouble guessing. :D

Len had never been very good at waiting.

Other than the two of them, the speed lab was empty. But Len kept twitching, sensing something move to his left or right, his hand snapping to his cold gun more than once. “I’m jumping at literal shadows,” he muttered. 

Barry wasn’t doing much better with the waiting thing. He was standing at the computer console in the corner, fizzing with lightning and drumming his hands against the desk.

On the clock on the wall, the second hand _ ticked _ forwards. 

(now)

Barry saw Len react, glancing up with an expectant look. “Ready?” 

Out of nowhere, Len was knocked back by a string of images, a grainy movie playing in his head - a possible future. STAR Labs ruined to a pile of rubble, the wreckage worse than after the particle accelerator explosion. Barry and Iris... nowhere. 

He held back a shudder. Not on his watch. “Ready.” He tilted his head at Barry. “Coming?”

A strained, wry grin from Barry. “You don’t need my help to go spinning off in time. Not anymore.”

Len’s chuckle was just as strained. “No, but come anyway. Just for old time’s sake.” 

(don’t make me do this alone)

At Barry’s nod, Len grabbed his hand.

There was a flash of very familiar blue light. Then the pain he’d been expecting, like his atoms being ripped apart and reassembled one by one. It wasn’t as bad as it once was, but he guessed he’d never quite get used to it.

With a rush as they displaced the air around them, Barry and Len appeared in an empty speed lab, one hour earlier. Everything was identical except for the time on the wall clock.

Beside him, Barry raised an eyebrow. “And that’s it?”

There was no need, but Len was still holding tight to Barry’s hand like a lifebuoy. “Yeah, that should do it. He’ll know I jumped. Now we go back to meet his considerable wrath about it.”

Barry shot him a rueful smile. “Get on with it, then, time traveler.”

Len obliged.

“He’s here,” came Iris’s hesitant voice through the computer, the minute they popped back into the present. “Right on _ time.” _ She sounded like she was just a little bit proud of the almost-pun. If Len hadn’t been so busy, he’d have enjoyed that.

“STAR Labs parking lot,” Len said. It wasn’t a question. He’d seen all of this, when he’d looked into his timeline at the Oculus. Now he just had to follow the timeline down to the place where it got fuzzy and split into a billion pieces, and then he’d make his choices.

“Yes, but—” Iris’s voice started, and cut off.

Something rippled in the air in front of them, resolving into the blue form of Len’s nightmares. _ You’re not supposed to be here, _ he wanted to protest, but it would have made him sound like a petulant child. _ It’s not fair. _

(you don’t get to touch them)

“Leonard Snart,” Manhattan said, towering above him, while Len pretended that wasn’t turning his stomach. “I have been expecting you.”

“You seem to know who I am,” Len said, to steal himself some thinking time.

“I have been waiting for you,” echoed the inhuman voice. “I knew from the beginning that you were coming.”

Len smirked, falling back on all the things he knew how to do best. He wondered if he’d ever felt quite this desperately in need of his arrogant Captain Cold persona. “Always nice to meet a fan.”

And then he took a step back, horror kicking the air out of his lungs, as the world cracked and the blue giant split himself like an atom. Again and again, till there were maybe fifty copies of himself, standing around the speed lab. 

If Len didn’t know any better, he’d swear they were all leering at him. Laughing at him.

And then the first Manhattan clicked his fingers, and all the copies of him thinned into the air and disappeared.

A new onslaught of images. Central City dead. Nuclear wasteland. 

Spinning around, he told Barry, “Go.”

“But you said—”

“I know,” he snapped, “but they’re headed to the city. The people of Central need you more than I do.”

Barry shot him a last longing, fearful look, but he didn’t argue. A burst of lightning, the familiar scent of a storm, and Len was left alone with the only remaining version of Manhattan. Maybe the original - if concepts like that mattered to this unimaginably powerful super-being.

“Come,” said Manhattan, with a curious almost-smile, and clicked his fingers.

* * *

Out in the STAR Labs parking lot, Manhattan was toying with Len like a cat with a battered mouse. He’d already spent half an hour just throwing him further and further back in time. Len crawled his way back each time, but he was getting bored with being tested. 

A blast of some kind of energy - Len really hoped that wasn’t _ nuclear _ energy - sent him spinning across the STAR Labs car park. He landed on unforgiving asphalt with a thunk that he was going to feel tomorrow.

If there was a tomorrow.

Dragging himself up, Len reached for the cold gun.

Manhattan sighed - a little dramatically, Len thought, and then he barked a punch-drunk laugh at the irony. Meanwhile, the giant was floating the gun out of Len’s damn hand, apparently just with the power of his irritatingly enormous brain. And then the giant took the thing apart, piece by piece, without touching it. The pieces clattered to the floor.

Len considered yelling out something along the lines of _ my gun! -_ but it wasn’t like Manhattan would even have noticed.

Closing his eyes, Len took himself back ten seconds before he’d reached for the gun, and then he stopped time. The earlier version of him stood frozen in front of another Manhattan - who blinked at him, watching, as though curious to see what Len would do. Trying not to let that unnerve him, Len reached out, took the cold gun, and popped back into the present with it.

Manhattan had the temerity to roll his eyes. “You play children’s games with the might of gods. Do you even know what the source of your power is?”

Len shrugged, shoving the cold gun back in its holster. “Does it matter?”

Manhattan regarded him with that creepy, unmoved look of his. “You have been gifted with temporal energy from the dawn of creation. The last scraps of the tachyon explosion released in the Big Bang. They coalesced in the Oculus and were stolen by the Time Masters. And now, in you, they have been loosed into the universe.”

“Exciting,” Len drawled.

A flicker of rage passed across Manhattan’s face, and was gone again. “That you do not know or care enough to steward this power responsibly, is one more sign that you should not be trusted with this gift. And so I will take it from you.”

“You’re not touching my partners,” Len warned, in the coldest voice he’d heard himself use for a long time.

He’d planned this with them. If things started to look bad, he could relocate Iris and Barry somewhere else in Time. Manhattan would know, but Len was hoping he could keep him distracted. With Barry busy defending the city, Iris had to be first. There was no way to tell her without raising suspicion, but they had factored that into their planning. He closed his eyes, whispered a silent apology to Iris for the snap decision - and reached out, ready to send her away from the present.

Nothing happened.

Manhattan’s smirk was cold enough to rival any that Len had ever worn. 

Len wasn’t panicking. They could still send Barry back to the Speed Force. He absolutely wasn’t panicking.

“Continue to try to obstruct me, if you wish to waste energy. It is futile.” Manhattan leered at Len, pushing up a rise of anger inside him. “Anywhere you try to hide them, in Time, on any earth, I will find them. And you cannot kill or defeat me. Really, forcing a confrontation was almost a good idea on your part. _ Almost.” _

“Then why do I get the weird feeling you can’t kill me either, hmm?” Len shot back.

A head tilt. “I will do what I have to.”

Slowly at first, but with terrifying persistence, the monster began to grow. Widening, broadening, up and up, till Len was knee-high to him - and found himself unable to move. 

Frozen, Len fought a wave of terror and deja-vu. _ You’re not ten years old, _ he told himself, as firmly as he could, wishing he could hear it in Iris’s voice. _ And he’s not gonna touch Iris or Barry._

(now get the fuck over it and do something)

Struggling against whatever invisible binds he was in, he managed to move his hand enough to reach the comms at his ear. “Waverider,” he choked out. “Now.”

His mistake, of course, was expecting the Legends to follow the plan. 

“We can’t,” came Sara’s not-quite-panicked voice. “The beam is on. Manhattan should be getting unstuck in time, but he’s just not budging.” Ray and Zari had been building that temporal relocation beam for days. It should have worked, at least enough to distract the giant for a little while.

_ Underestimating me, again, _ rang out Manhattan’s voice, clear as the ticking of a clock, inside Len’s head.

“Hold on, Leonard,” Sara said in his ear. “We’re trying something else.”

“Sara, wait—” Len started. 

Manhattan was still increasing in size, and now he was starting to glow a faint green, clearly gathering power for something. If he got much bigger, his head might hit the damn Waverider and knock it out of the sky. His attention was still focused on Len, though. The giant gave a lazy wave of his hand, and Len slid backwards. Left leg first, he slammed hard into a fence.

“Sara,” he panted, “you need to take the ship back to the time stream...”

And then Len’s eye caught on a shimmer, as the Waverider briefly became visible and cloaked again. The jump ship was spinning out, flying straight at the now-colossal Manhattan.

“Hey, boss,” said a voice Len knew too well, over his comm.

_ “Mick? _What the hell are you doing?”

“Buying you some time,” Mick’s voice crackled. “Being a distraction, like you said.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Just hang in there,” Mick interrupted.

Len struggled up, testing his leg. It wasn’t broken, at least. “Mick, _ don’t,” _he warned, as the jump ship kept heading right at Manhattan. 

(not Mick. not this time.)

“Sorry, boss,” Mick said, real regret in his voice. “Guess I owed you one.” For once in his damn life, Len couldn’t find any words to fill the silence - till Mick added, “Take care of yourself.”

”No—”

The jump ship flew straight for Manhattan, exploding in fire. Len couldn’t look away - he staggered back.

And then the burning remains of the ship... disappeared.

* * *

In the Cortex, Iris was flipping between monitor windows. “His clones are setting off tiny nuclear explosions all over town. I think they’re warnings.”

“You call nuclear bombs _ warnings?” _ Cisco squeaked beside her.

Iris shot him the most confident, team-leader-worthy look she could manage. “Cisco, I’m gonna need you in town, finding those bombs before they go off. You can send them into space, right?”

Vibe stared at the screen, then back to her. “Okay... but Frost, Ralph and Fast Track are already out there. I’ll be leaving STAR Labs undefended.”

“No,” said a voice from the door. “You won’t.”

Iris turned around. There stood Lisa Snart, decked out in as much motorcycle leather as ever, with her gold gun in her hand. “As my brother likes to say, did someone order up a rescue?” She gave Iris a brilliant smile. “Hi, hon. Need a hand?”

Iris shook her head, suppressing a giggle of relief at the sight of a possibility of rescue - even if it was only her not-quite-sister-in-law. “Lisa, I appreciate the offer, but one gold gun isn’t going to make much difference to our defences at this point.”

Lisa grinned wider. “How about one gold gun, one powerful meta who can control the weather, another who can get your enemies into a spinning tizzy, yet _another_ who can pop in and out of places like she’s got a Star Trek transporter, and one brilliant nerdy mind with a set of gauntlets I won’t even pretend to understand?” She grinned over at Cisco, who was gaping at her. “Something to do with sound waves, apparently.”

Iris hoped that the horror of dawning understanding didn’t show _ too _ much on her face. She wouldn’t have wanted to look ungrateful. “You broke Mardon and the Top out of prison?”

Lisa giggled. “Be grateful I left Axel where he was! For now, anyway. He’s a bit too unpredictable. The others are stationed at points upstairs that I’ve identified as key flaws in your security. Did you even know you’ve got all these blue freaks trying to waltz in here like criminals who think they own the place?” She waggled her eyebrows. “So, where do you want me, boss?”

Iris glanced at the monitor. Then she got up and took a step towards her Rogue rescuer. “Lisa,” she said quietly, “I’m on call in case Len needs me. Think you could take over here if he does?”

Lisa beamed. “Anything for you, sweetie.” But Iris caught her eyes flickering to the monitor, where Len was managing to hold off the blue giant. “Anything for you,” she said again, much more quietly.

Behind her, Cisco coughed. “So, can I...”

As Iris waved him away, he brought up a portal with the flick of a wrist.

“Oh, but do come back safely, Cisco,” Lisa purred, as he stepped into it. “I wouldn’t want to miss out on a happy reunion. Not after all this time apart.”

Iris didn’t hear Cisco’s stuttered reply. She was busy working on the plan.

* * *

If the explosion of the jump ship had ever happened in this timeline, it hadn’t left a scratch on Manhattan. 

(too powerful - can’t win)

“Stop fighting,” the giant sneered, watching Len trying and failing once more to jump in time, to shift Iris or Barry in time or space, to do _ anything. _ “You are too human for these powers.” 

“That so?” Len hissed, between ragged breaths.

_ “I _ am not. I am connected to every atom of the universe. I can see every moment that has ever happened and every moment that will ever happen. You could do all this and more, but you have chosen to remain human and not to do these things, not to know these things.” His blue head tilted. “Why?”

What had Barry said, back in the lounge? _ We’ve got something he doesn’t_. 

Len tilted his head. “Osterman. That was your name, wasn’t it? Jonathan Osterman.”

The giant paused. For a moment, a flicker of _ something _ interrupted his impassive expression.

Reaching out, Len found an aborted timeline, somewhere on the edge of his own personal, twisted web of Time. A timeline where Len had become more than human... and less than human. Where he was no longer Leonard Snart, or even Captain Cold, and the only name he was called - spoken in fear - was _ Oculus. _Where he never had either Barry or Iris as an anchor, tethering him to this world. Where he had never been loved.

“You ever love anyone, Osterman?”

Manhattan ignored the question, but his gaze dropped to the left. Just a little.

Len didn’t move his focus away from Barry and Iris. Drawing on all his power, he could see their timelines clearly now. He had to goad this time punk into making his move. “We gonna keep chatting for all of Time, or are you gonna get on with it and get rid of me?”

A cold smile crossed the blue guy’s face. “I see no more point in fighting you, if it can even be called that. I can predict every move you are going to make. But...” The smile disappeared, a thoughtful, calculating look replacing it. “If I disconnect you from your anchors, you could choose to join me. I have never had an equal before.”

Under his parka, Len’s hand tightened around his completely useless cold gun. “If you really know everything I’m about to do, then you know I ain’t gonna give them up for that. I ain’t gonna give up my _ humanity _ to become...” He waved at Manhattan’s blue, impassive form. “You.” 

The sneer was back. “Think carefully about this offer. I will not make it again. No one ever offered me a choice like this.”

For a fraction of a second, Len reached out, and his mind found a possible timeline, where he said yes. He shuddered, shaking his head hard. “No thank you. Even if it didn’t involve giving up the people I love, there’s no way I’d become a— a monster.” 

There was a reason Len had spent half his life fighting not to become one of those. And still, he’d come close. It was Barry and, later, Iris who had brought him back from the brink more times than Len was proud of. He wasn’t giving in now. 

He channeled everything he’d felt when he blew up the Oculus, all that rage against the puppet masters of his world, from Lewis Snart to the Time Masters, and now this freak. “Fuck you all. No strings on me.”

The inhuman look was back on the giant’s face. “I tried,” he said, shrinking down fast till he was human sized. Striding towards Len, Manhattan grabbed him.

The world span away beneath Leonard’s feet.

* * *

“My god,” Len said.

He was standing, if you could call it that, in the dark. Manhattan’s timeline was more twisted and complicated than any Len had ever encountered. It was dizzying. The guy really did experience every moment, in every timeline and every universe, all at once. It was the loneliest feeling Len had ever felt.

“You’re not just from another earth,” Len said into the darkness. “You’re from another timeline. One that was destroyed.”

“Yes,” said a disembodied voice, sounding disorientated. Contact with Len had taken the giant out of reality. He guessed Manhattan hadn’t been expecting that. 

Len looked closer at the giant’s mess of timelines - scanning worlds and existences, caught deeper than he’d ever been in the web of Time before. 

(has the spider trapped the fly?)

“That timeline was destroyed because of you.”

“My influence was disruptive to the timeline,” said Manhattan’s voice. “Now my purpose is to remove... other disruptions, to other timelines.”

In Len’s head, a light switched on. Manhattan didn’t understand. The guy was still seeing Time as a fixed, predestined line, full of events that would happen no matter what. He couldn’t see the bigger web behind it all. 

Manhattan knew about the Oculus. He had to know that there was free will in this universe now, at least in this timeline. But he couldn’t see Time the way Len could, with all the possible futures and fractured timelines and _ choices _ making everything so very, very messy.

_ It’s all about the choices. _

Turning away from the dark timeline stretched out before him, where that difference in understanding could be Len’s victory or his undoing, he said, “So, for the last time, are we gonna fight?”

“No. I am going to destroy you,” Manhattan said, and he closed his eyes.

When Len was ten years old, he used to go down to the big creek on the border between Keystone and Central City. No one except him was brave enough to cross it, jumping from rock to slimy rock. He was the smallest kid in the neighborhood, and even back then he knew his survival depended on being the last to flinch. So he didn’t. He would just close his eyes and... jump.

Only once did he ever manage to tear open a gash in his side, landing wrong on a cruelly jagged river rock. Lewis refused to take him to hospital - just got his mob doc friend to come in and stitch Len up. But it had been worth it.

Unflinching, Len reached out with his mind. 

And jumped.

* * *

One Hour Earlier 

“Are you gonna share the plan now, Leonard?” 

Len shrugged. “Not exactly. I gotta think on my feet. But... I’ve seen bits of the future, even though it gets fucked up whenever Manhattan’s involved.“ He met Barry’s wide, damp eyes as he talked. Anchors... “Assume that everything I do, from here on, is a distraction. I need his attention focused on me, and away from both of you. When I can’t distract him anymore, I’ll bring on the main event.” He shrugged. “Bit fuzzy on the details there. I’ll know when I need to make my move.”

“But—” Iris’s voice started to say.

He put up a hand. “Sorry, Iris. No questions. Right now I can’t make any decisions, or he’ll see the future.”

Barry raised an eyebrow. “How does _ that _ work?”

“It’s a trick the Oculus showed me. I think Manhattan’s perspective on Time is different from mine.” He leaned conspiratorially towards the computer, towards Iris’s face. She was biting a gorgeous lip, her eyes worried. He kept going. “But here’s the thing. I’m the one who cut the strings of destiny of the universe. And I can still see deep enough into Time to _ pull _ on those strings.”

“I hope that’ll be enough,” Iris replied, a little choked-up. All Len wanted to do was to march down to the Cortex and hold her. He didn’t. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I hope so too.”

* * *

Now 

Len landed back in the speed lab. Drawing his cold gun, he blasted his way out through the pile of furniture still piled up at the door, and strode to the Cortex.

In the corridor, Lisa let him past without a word. He didn’t have time to pretend to be surprised to see her, but he gave her the best smirk he could manage. As he passed, his hand brushed hers. She held his gaze for a second, and nodded.

And he walked on.

He grinned at Shawna as she popped into existence outside the Cortex. “Doing my best, boss,” she said.

“Doing a fine job, Baez.” He glanced past her, down the STAR Labs corridor. “Do you think you guys can safely keep Trouble out of here for a few seconds, if he follows? Just distract him?”

“I think so,” she said, and popped out of sight again.

The Cortex was empty except for Iris at the computers, watching four heroes outnumbered by blue clones and still fighting. She looked up at him, her eyes just a little wild. “They’ve all gone to fight.” Her voice was soft - more frightened than he’d ever heard her.

Len nodded. “I disoriented Manhattan. Gave us four minutes.” He didn’t need to check his watch, but his right hand ghosted across it anyway. He leaned across the computer terminal and hit a button. “Change of plan, Barry. Can you get back here?” He felt a ripple in the timeline immediately, as Barry zipped in beside them. “Three minutes,” he added.

“What’s going on, Len?” Barry said, in a very small, very Barry Allen voice, despite the scarlet suit and lightning emblem. It was unnerving. Len had always relied on the Flash’s cocky confidence to match and bolster his own. And Len’s was failing, too.

He leaned back against the console, keeping both Barry and Iris in his line of sight. “I’ve run out of ways to hold him back. It’s like everything’s all happening at once, for him. There’s only one place in this universe I’m guessing he can’t see what I’m gonna do.”

“The Oculus,” Barry said, and Len didn’t have time for the desperation and grief in his voice. “Are you going to release the time lock?”

“I don’t know.” Len squeezed Iris’s hand - it had found its way into his. “As long as I don’t decide till I get there, I don’t think he knows either.”

“But you’re not sure he won’t guess,” Iris inferred. Those deep brown eyes, the ones he could get lost in forever, were too wide. 

He shrugged, and turned to Barry. “I’d take you with me, try hiding you from him there, but I don’t know if - what I might do - will kill you.” _ I don’t know if it will kill me, _ he didn’t say. They knew. “If he comes for you, go back to the Speed Force, and stay there.” He was done worrying about the details. He ignored the hitch in Iris’s breath, telling himself he didn’t have any choice but to separate Barry from her. He just had to hope Manhattan would keep his word - that he wouldn’t turn on _ her. _

“I can’t leave the city—” Barry started.

“Yes you _ can,” _ Len snapped back. 

Barry had already slumped against the desk in defeat. Len didn’t want to win this battle, but he already had. “Will he follow you to the Oculus?” Barry asked, very quietly.

Len shrugged a single shoulder. “I don’t know if it’ll let him through. Time here doesn’t work the way he thinks it does, but he’s still crazy powerful. I’m gonna have to improvise a little, either way.”

Iris coughed, clearly to cover the start of tears. Len didn’t mention it. “You know what happens if you release the time lock at the Oculus.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “I know what _ should _ have happened, four years ago. The Oculus Wellspring explosion should have blown everything in this universe to pieces, including me. The consciousness in the Oculus limited itself with the lock, kept the worst of the damage from reaching the timeline.”

“Because of you?” Iris said. 

He’d never found a conclusive answer to that question, but he liked to think he had something to do with it. That the Oculus... cared. He shrugged again, falling back on the smug overconfidence that might already have cost him this fight. “If I go back, maybe I can end this without destroying all of Time.”

“Even if you can...” said Barry’s choked voice. “If the Oculus lets the lock go with you still inside - won’t you die?”

He didn’t have an answer. It felt like his throat was closing up.

_ No strings on him... _ except when all his choices were taken from him. He’d been fighting these puppet-strings too long. They always tightened, in the end. His choices were _ always _ taken from him. The question was, what was he going to do next?

With a dazzling flare of light, Manhattan appeared in the Cortex. His impassive expression was so much more terrifying than the rage or triumph that might have graced any other villain’s face. He had decided it was time to win.

He was striding towards Barry, whose eyes showed him caught between a decision to run, and the fear of leaving Iris to face Manhattan alone.

“I’m sorry,” Len said, because leaving Iris and Barry with the giant might have been the worst thing he’d ever done, in his whole long life of fucking up.

And he closed his eyes, and jumped.

* * *

Four Years Ago 

_ Mick? _

_ Get out of here. _

_ Not without you, Mick! _

_ My old friend - please forgive me... _

_ Shut it down! _

_ There are no strings on me. _

Blue light flared.

A fraction of a second before a thousand explosions ignited across the Vanishing Point, one version of Leonard Snart disappeared into the Oculus Wellspring.

Time stopped.

A second Leonard Snart stood on nothing, on the edge of a blue detonation, frozen mid-explosion. He took a step forward and drawled, “Well, that was bracing.” 

In one sense, there was all the time in the world here to stand around and chat, now. But there also wasn’t. He was afraid, now, that there was something in the universe that could break in, like a thief in the night, to this place of safety and quiet.

(his place. _ his_.) 

The Eye blinked at him. “There should not be two of you here, Leonard Snart,” said the Voice.

“Sorry,” he drawled, looking around for a surface to slouch against, and giving up. “Had a bit of an emergency. Had to push up the, uh, timeline. So to speak.”

The Eye continued to blink steadily. “You should not be able to exist here at this moment. Are you well?”

“Peachy.” Len took a step closer towards the Eye, hearing his own voice turn apologetic. “Look, I—” He shook his head. “I wanted to do this _ after _ I’d defeated Manhattan. Striding in here, cold gun blazing, asking how you wanted this done. But I’ve run out of choices.”

“This is understood.” For a moment, Len wondered if the Oculus’s booming Voice in his head had already started to fade. “There is much I wished to show you, Leonard Snart, when you were ready.”

Len had never heard the Oculus use the word ‘I’ before. If he’d had a real body in this place, he would have swallowed around a lump in his throat.

He laid a translucent approximation of a hand on the twisting metal, all that was left of the Wellspring. “Wish I had time to learn.” 

_ “Time _ is not the problem,” said the Oculus. “You could stay here forever, and no Time would pass beyond this dimension.”

“Yeah, we’ve had this discussion. I wouldn’t be human anymore, soon enough,” Len guessed, and the Oculus’s silence confirmed it. “And what about my anchors, back in the real world with him, hmm?”

“Your tethers,” the Oculus said, something oddly soft in its voice. “You were offered the choice, once, between staying with them and staying with me. Do you still make the same one?”

“Every time.”

“Good,” said the Oculus. And then: “So are you going to get on with it, then, Leonard Snart?”

Len felt himself huff a laugh, although it might just have been in his head. “Just tell me one thing. What were you, before the Time Masters?”

There was a pause, as though the Voice was thinking, before it spoke again. “What you call the Oculus is the soul of the temporal zone. It existed before the dawn of everything else. It will go on existing, but not in this form. It will be scattered.” Another pause. “I told you that it was not known that you would gain these powers, but... it was always known that you would come.”

Len felt a smile pulling at the corners of his nonexistent mouth. “You were waiting for me.”

“...Yes.” It sounded like it wasn’t quite a satisfactory answer, but good enough.

But there was no time for more. Len could feel the edges of his mind beginning to warp, turning something other than human, as they always did here in the end. He patted the remains of the Wellspring once more. “Gotta go. You ready?”

Silence.

(it doesn’t want to die)

After forever and no time at all, the Oculus said, “Yes.”

Len nodded. “Any last words of advice?”

The Voice took him more seriously than he expected. “You were told that only you could give those powers purpose,” it said in an old and strangely familiar tone. “Do so.”

Rolling eyes he might not have had towards a sky that didn’t exist, Len drawled, “All this rambling mean you’ll miss me?” 

Another pause, then, “I believe I will.”

Len closed his eyes. “You ready to show me how to do this?”

“Yes. Do you have a plan... for afterwards?”

“Always.”

“Try not to throw it away,” were the last words of a force more ancient and powerful than anything else in the multiverse.

When the time lock blew open, Len’s laughter was still ringing through the Vanishing Point.

At the moment of Manhattan’s arrival at the Oculus, the Wellspring exploded into every moment of Time that ever was and ever would be, all at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The (very brief) whump-y parts are in two scenes between Len and Manhattan. The first starts at “A blast of some kind of energy...” and ends at “If there was a tomorrow.” The second starts at “The giant gave a lazy wave of his hand” and only lasts till the next sentence. (Very brief!) 
> 
> Yet more thanks to everyone who’s reading and commenting - you are wonderful. See you all in a week or two. :)


	14. Catalyst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Penultimate chapter. Len, Barry and Iris take one last trip back in time together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Mina for excellent beta reading, as always.
> 
> Content warning for a _very_ vague reference to a past suicide attempt. See endnotes if you want to skip the relevant part.

Len came back to consciousness slowly. It was like struggling his way up from under water towards the light, and about as much fun.

He was sprawled out on a sidewalk. Blinking aching eyes, he dragged himself into a sitting position. Lights were on in the houses nearby. A lazy suburban car rolled by. It looked like the world hadn’t ended, so that was a win.

Reaching out with his mind to the Oculus got him... nothing. A silence in his head like he hadn’t known since before he died. “Gonna miss you, buddy,” he murmured, sadder than he’d expected to be. “Well, guess I succeeded. Unless this is hell.” 

(entirely possible, given which street he was on)

He glowered at his childhood house - nothing had ever been able to persuade him to call that place a home - taking in the details under a sunset-orange sky. A pink scooter with yellow ribbons had been leaned up against an outside wall for the night. Len had got Lisa that scooter - paid for, and everything. He’d forgotten about that, and he grinned as the memory came back to him. Then he noticed the 1990 Chevy Camaro looming in the driveway, and he stopped smiling. Lewis had loved that fucking thing. His father had put some effort, for once in his rotten excuse for a life, into acquiring a car that didn’t scream ‘stolen’ but that he could never have afforded honestly. A younger and much dumber Len had keyed it a couple of times, just to piss him off. 

So he was back in his own timeline. _ Again. _

He had no idea if he could time travel back to his present, if the Oculus was gone. Praying for a rescue from Barry if he couldn’t—

(please let Barry and Iris be okay)

—he dragged himself up off the ground to see what was what.

There was a kid sitting on the wall outside his old house. No one Len recognized. Maybe 14, in torn jeans and scuffed shoes, with a messy mop of curly hair. The kid was kicking the wall - knock, knock, knock. Regular, like clockwork. 

“Hello,” Len said as he neared the young stranger. With no clue what was possessing him, he stuck out his hand. “Leonard.”

The kid’s eyes narrowed at Len’s hand. “Hey. I’m Billy. They/them pronouns.”

It had to be just a coincidence that Len had killed someone with that name once... but it made him wonder, for a second.

“Good to meet you, Billy.” Len bit down a smile as Billy grabbed his hand with bone-crunching enthusiasm. “Ain’t seen you ‘round here before.”

“No.” Billy narrowed their eyes at Len. “But don’t worry, you will.” They jumped off the wall, only releasing Len’s hand when they were on the ground. “Are you ready to destroy it?”

Blinking at the kid, Len heard himself say, “Uh— Huh?”

Billy rolled their eyes, throwing back their head for extra emphasis. Len was almost impressed. Such cynicism from one so young. “The Oculus, doofus. You need to blow it up, yeah?”

Clearly, Len had got hit in the head in the explosion. “I thought I just did?”

“It _ got _ destroyed, but you didn’t _ do _ the destroying yet. You’re just gonna do things in reverse order, that’s all.” At Len’s baffled silence, they added, “You been a time traveler long? ‘Cause you’re shit at it.” Billy began to walk away, taking a moment to shoot Len a smirk first - and damn, that really was as irritating as Barry claimed.

“Hey!” Len yelled after them. “Gonna explain any of this?”

Grinning over their shoulder, Billy called back, “You’ll figure it out.” They took a few more steps away, before turning back and adding, “Oh yeah - try to find your tethers. They’re floating around here somewhere. A gift from the Oculus.”

“They’re _ what?” _ Len started— and stopped. In a subtle twinkle of blue light, Billy had disappeared.

“You’re right, Barry - that’s creepy as fuck,” Len said to the sky, since his eyes had already rolled in that direction.

“What’s creepy?” asked Barry’s voice behind him.

“He means the disappearing act, I think,” Iris answered.

It took Len a moment to come down from his jump two feet into the air. “Where the hell did you two come from?” he asked, when he could speak again.

Iris - _ beautiful _ Iris - was walking around to gaze at him as if she wasn’t sure he was real. She reached out an elegant hand, and he couldn’t hold back a smile as she laid it, warm and strong, on his cheek. And held it there, meeting his eyes and matching his smile. He was so tempted to close his eyes and lean into her touch, but none of them were safe enough for that yet.

“I guess you don’t have the answers either, then,” Iris said. “We turned up here not long ago.” 

In a crackle of lightning, Barry flashed in beside her, laying a hand on her shoulder. “We figured we should just wait till you joined us, since this was clearly an Oculus thing.” He frowned at Len. “It _ is _ an Oculus thing, right?”

Relief washed over Len at the sight of his miracle of a speedster. Still, he forced himself to hold off on hugging Barry till he’d worked out what was going on. The pieces were falling into place in his head, like he’d been playing chess with the universe and finally, finally, it was showing him how to win. “Don’t think there is an Oculus anymore,” he said. “Now I need to do the things that’ll make that happen.”

Barry frowned. “Give me that again?”

But Iris had got there before him, of course, her eyes wide and focused. It was better than watching her chase a story. That woman’s mind was the sexiest thing about her, Len thought, and that was saying something. “You did it,” she said, with a smile at him that might have been proud. “Back in the present, the Oculus has been destroyed?”

He tilted his head from side to side. “The present, four years ago - yeah, something like that.”

“Huh. But your timeline hasn’t changed.”

“Don’t think so. Not enough for the explosion to end me, by the looks of things,” he said, with a point of his finger. “The Oculus said something about how its temporal energy would be scattered.” He glanced over at the spot where Billy had disappeared, and another puzzle piece slotted into a space in his head. “Think I might have met one of the people it got... scattered to. Guess enough of it still exists to let me keep my powers.”

Iris’s eyes had narrowed at him. “And now you have to set the events in motion, in the past, that will set off the explosion?”

He nodded, trying not to look back at the house. “Don’t think it’ll take long.” 

Barry ran a hand down his face. “What’s this about, Len?”

“What it’s been about since the beginning of this mess. The things I regret, and the things I don’t.” 

He focused on Barry and Iris, feeling them anchor him in reality, letting everything else go. As long as they were here, he could face what he had to do next. It was nearly over - he could feel it. And then they could go home, all three of them. And Iris could make terrible pancakes at 9 PM and Len could claim they’d go well with a bottle of Merlot, and they’d watch Star Trek, and Iris would pretend she didn’t know what a Klingon was, and Len would pretend to mind when Barry insisted on cuddling him, and they’d all fall asleep on the couch, tangled around each other. And, hey, maybe tomorrow they’d get a cat. Anything, as long as it was about the three of them. As long as it was _ now. _

(a cat. that sounded nice)

“Come on,” he said, turning resolutely on his heel. Just a few things left to be done, and he could leave that fucking house where it belonged - behind him. “I got three things I need to do.”

* * *

Iris was holding tight to Barry’s hand, following as Leonard slipped in and out of his childhood home like a - well, like a thief. He insisted on going in alone. She didn’t let go of Barry’s hand, jiggling her foot against the sidewalk as they waited. Something about this felt momentous.

But if Len felt that too, he didn’t seem able to put it into words. “Had to grab something,” was his only terse comment when he reappeared, and then he led them a few blocks down the street.

A little way down, they stopped at a brick-red front door. “Family friends,” Leonard said.

Barry glanced at Iris, but neither of them said anything. Iris stilled her foot as it started to get jittery again.

Leonard paused to look at them both, as if he was trying to decide something. And then he shrugged, reached out, and knocked.

A tall Black woman, maybe in her fifties, opened the door. “Yeah?”

“Hi,” Len said. Iris had the uneasy sensation of being back in time, watching Leonard Snart slip into the kind of persona he must have used when he was conning people. He was still good at it, too - everything about him changed in a moment, from his smirk to his voice. “You don’t know me, but I’m a distant relative of Lewis Snart.”

The woman’s face tightened into a sour look. “Is that so? Well then, you can just—”

“Save it,” he interrupted, reaching into his parka and producing a very well-stuffed envelope. Her eyes widened. “I know you’re no fan of Snart’s, but you’ve looked after those kids before, and I want you to know I appreciate it. The eldest is... going away. Could you do me a favor, and keep an eye on Lisa?”

Understanding was hitting Iris like a fist in the stomach. Leonard couldn’t change his past, but maybe, just a little, he could change Lisa’s. 

The woman’s eyes had narrowed at him. “Yeah, okay.” She tried to pass the envelope back. “Not for money, though, okay?”

He put a hand up. “I know, but - just to cover your costs. That kid can eat like a lioness, if you let her.” His eyebrows creased together. “And you should let her,” he added quietly. 

They exchanged a few more words of thanks and acknowledgement. As they walked away, the woman called out to Leonard. “Why can’t you look after her?”

He smiled into the darkness. “I will. Might be a while, though. Let’s say I’ve got some growing up to do first.”

“Who is she?” Iris asked, when they were far enough away. 

“My mother’s cousin,” Leonard said, after a moment. 

Barry was staring back down the road at the woman, who was still standing on her porch, watching them. He was quiet, clearly doing some thinking.

Iris nodded. Her voice came out soft - she was suddenly getting the strange feeling she might spook him - as she asked, “Will it make a difference?”

Len’s gaze was distant as he stared back down towards his family house. It looked like he was allowing himself one final look at it, across the years. “Not to me. By now, I’ve already left. That’s too risky to try and change. To Lisa?” He shrugged, old pain shining openly in his eyes. “Maybe not much, but… I hope so.” Then he gathered himself, a smirk back on his face. “Two to go.” He grabbed both their hands, and the world burst into blue light.

* * *

Iris was taking in the familiar scene. At the row of warehouses by the docks, the air was thick with smoke and death. There was police tape around _ that _ warehouse, its roof collapsed in on itself. 

As Leonard ushered them behind a wall, she said, “This is the time you brought us to before.” The realization was making her a bit dizzy. In a nearby warehouse, different versions of the three of them were still here. “Mick has already set the fire.” She turned to Leonard, who was looking a little queasy himself. Coming back here once must have been hard enough. A second time had to be torture. “Has he been taken away?”

He nodded, rustling in his jacket for something. “Quiet, now. Need you guys to stay in hiding. I never saw you two.”

“I don’t—” Barry started, shaking his head.

Iris poked him. “He said, keep it down,” she whispered, pointing at another warehouse. “Right now, we’re over there.”

“Oh,” Barry said, like he was brand new to the idea of time travel, and Iris and Leonard shared a mutual eye roll.

“We saw my future self turn up, remember?” Leonard whispered. “Gotta go do what I saw him do.”

“And that was...?” Barry was watching Len with a soft, expectant expression that Iris couldn’t name. It was a far cry from the way he had looked at Leonard the first time they were here, when he’d been an angry, defensive mess, and Leonard hadn’t been much better. Now Barry was glowing with trust. She wasn’t sure either of them would ever really understand Leonard’s past, but she could finally see Barry trying to accept him. All of him - past, present and future. It was all Iris had wanted for them for a long time. In spite of the tension of the surroundings, she realised she was smiling at them both.

Leonard smiled back at her, pulling something out of his pocket. “I’m gonna go plant a confession,” he replied to Barry, waving the note he’d produced. “It says I take full responsibility for killing Hudson… and for the fire. Mick was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

More clockwork was turning in Iris’s head. It wouldn’t change much for Leonard. It would just be another felony on a record that Barry would erase soon afterwards. It could change quite a lot for Mick, though. 

Lisa. Mick. The things he regretted, and the things he didn’t. 

“Why?” Barry asked, when Len came back. 

Leonard leaned against the wall, one knee bent up. He was staring in the direction of the warehouse he’d just left, but a faraway look in his eyes suggested he was scanning timelines. “Did you ever wonder where Mick recovered, after that fire?”

Barry shrugged. Clearly he hadn’t. “Some kind of underground clinic?”

Leonard shook his head, something hard and cold set in his face. “An empty safe house. Alone, for six months. He had no skin grafts, barely any treatment - it wasn’t till he figured he was dying that he paid stolen cash to a shitty back-alley doc to look him over. In the new timeline, they drop the arson and murder charges. Mick’s still too much of a wanted man to go to a real hospital, and the stubborn bastard never accepts skin grafts.” That hard look was softening the more he talked about his best friend, as he watched the timeline changing, just a little. “But he gets looked after. Doesn’t suffer three infections. Ends up with a bit less of the chronic pain he’s been plagued with for years. And...” He gave them a casual shrug, seeming a bit reluctant to explain this part, even to them. “And he gets in touch with me. I— help.”

Iris smiled, and her hand reached for Leonard’s shoulder. “You never had that year-long separation.”

He rolled his eyes, but he didn’t shrug her hand off. _ “Please. _Ain’t like we were married.” Iris ignored Barry’s snort behind them. “Hardly heroic,” Leonard went on, in a familiar self-deprecating tone. “Should have done a hell of a lot better. But this is...” He frowned, his gaze sliding to the docks under their feet.

“It’s something you could do,” Iris finished for him. 

He paused to give her a grateful nod. Then he grabbed her hand, tugging on it. “Come on. One more.”

On her other side, Barry threw his hands in the air. “One more _ what?” _

Leonard just laughed, offering Barry his other hand. Iris didn’t ask, trusting that he’d let them see soon enough. She grabbed her husband’s free hand. When the three of them were a perfect circle, the world turned blue again.

* * *

This time, Leonard fell silent as soon as they arrived. For a moment, he just stood there, looking up at Central City General Hospital, gray and cold ahead of them like a concrete graveyard.

Iris already had an uneasy feeling about this one. There were no immediate signs of the year, but that didn’t stop her trying to figure it out. “Leonard? When are we?” 

“1988,” he said, after a long pause. “I’m sixteen, and I’m—” He pointed up at a window. “Up there.” Spinning around, he cast a questioning look at Iris. “I told you about this night.”

Yes, he had. She remembered, like a stone sinking in her stomach. A year ago, in their living room, he’d told her the story of what sounded like the worst night of his life. How he’d met himself as a kid, when he’d been close to giving up. She hadn’t asked many questions. Given how he’d looked when he talked about it, she hadn’t wanted to know. And here he was, right back here - steadying himself with a white-knuckled hand against the outer wall of the hospital. Visitors and would-be patients pushed past them on the way to the entrance, but Leonard didn’t move.

Barry laid a hand on his shoulder. “You want us to go with you?” he asked in a low voice.

Leonard blinked, visibly dragging himself back to reality. He looked between Barry and Iris, considering. “That’d be good.” He frowned at a point in the distance. “You‘ll have to stay outside the room, though. Neither of you were there.” Then his eyes widened. “Oh.”

“What?” Iris asked.

He shrugged. “You were. Timeline’s shifting. There were two orderlies in the corner. Guess I was too drugged up to care.” Setting his face into an old, cold mask, he started off towards the hospital door. “Coming?” he called, without looking back.

“This,” Barry observed, “is like a very weird runaway train ride.”

She nodded towards Leonard, disappearing ahead of them. “Do you trust the driver?”

“Completely,” he said without hesitation.

And so did she. Falling into step with each other, they followed Leonard through the hospital doors.

Upstairs, the dark corridors were empty - the desolate kind of empty that only a hospital at night can be. Leonard slipped into a storeroom and out again, throwing a couple of sets of scrubs at them. “Orderlies,” he explained, when Iris tried to raise a judgemental eyebrow at him. She repressed a laugh - because, while she refused to approve, watching him at work as a thief was almost enticing - and went to find somewhere to get changed.

When she and Barry returned, Leonard was leaning on the wall by a door. His eyes were fixed on a tiny window that revealed a grim hallway beyond. Iris took in the black lettering on the door - ‘Psychiatric Ward’ - several seconds before she made the mental leap.

_ Oh. _

Leonard pulled a bunch of keys out of a pocket, unlocking the imposing metal door. Iris swallowed the urge to ask where he’d got those - silly question. 

They trailed behind him as he strode down the hall. A few rooms down, he stopped with his hand on a door handle, catching Iris’s eye. “Do you want to know?” He sounded so reluctant that she could only shake her head. “Good,” he muttered. 

And he opened the door.

The version of Leonard curled up in the bed looked younger than sixteen. Len had told her he’d been small as a child, but she wasn’t expecting him to look quite that vulnerable - and so alone that it hurt to look at. The boy didn’t move when they came in, facing away from them, towards the dark window. 

Iris slipped into a shadowy corner. Barry sat down, very quietly, on a plastic chair beside her.

_ Her _ Leonard was approaching the bed. The look on his face was about as bleak as she’d ever seen there. “Hey,” he said. He was glowing a faint blue. Protecting the timeline from too much damage from meeting himself, Iris guessed.

The boy in the bed rolled over and glared at Leonard. “What do you want?” 

Leonard dropped down onto the edge of the bed. In a very quiet voice, he said, “I’m here to tell you you’re gonna make it through this, Lenny.”

A familiar sarcastic lilt made it through the boy’s slurred words. “It gets better, huh?”

Leonard cast a quick glance in Iris and Barry’s direction, and Iris’s next breath caught in her throat. Then he turned back to Lenny. “It does… but not for a long time. It’ll be a shitshow for a while first.”

“Encouraging,” the kid murmured. The tone was all Leonard, but the fear in his eyes was painful to look at. 

Beside her, Barry watched through serious, thoughtful eyes.

Leonard lifted a hesitant hand - glowing a much stronger blue now - and laid it gently over his younger self’s hand. She caught a glimpse of bandages disappearing beneath the sleeves of a thick hoodie. The boy flinched at the contact, but Leonard didn’t pull back. “Lenny, this is important,” he said.

From where Iris was standing, she could only see the boy’s face - Leonard’s was shrouded in shadow. But something was shifting in Lenny’s eyes. “Who are you?” he demanded, as if he already knew but didn’t believe it.

“Someone you’ll get to know soon enough.” Iris could just make out the back of Leonard’s shoulders shrugging. “Here’s the thing, kid. One day, someone will tell you you’re better than you think you are.” On her right, she caught a glimpse of Barry’s little smile. “And then you’re gonna do some good things. Even a few great things.” He paused. “You’ll be a hero - in your own way.”

The boy barked a bitter laugh, pulling away from Leonard and turning his face back to the window. “Think you’ve mistaken me for someone else, man. I ain’t no hero.”

“Give it time,” Leonard said evenly. 

The boy was still and silent for so long that Iris wondered if he’d fallen asleep. Only Leonard’s defensive posture on the edge of the bed made her think otherwise. He sat there with his hand ready on his cold gun, as if he was shielding his younger self from a brutal world.

At last Leonard stood up, gesturing for Barry and Iris to follow him out. 

But as she reached the door, Iris caught a whispered “Really?” from the occupant of the bed.

Leonard turned around once more. In the light shining in from the hall, she could see him staring at the younger version of himself. That look in Leonard’s eyes might have been hope. “Trust me, kid. I know what I’m talking about.”

Once they were out of the room, Leonard slumped against the wall. She glanced at Barry - whose eyes, now that she could see them in the harsh light of the hallway, were darkly sad and focused on their partner.

“I don’t get this timeline shit,” Leonard admitted. “I don’t remember a signed confession being left at the warehouse, in the original timeline.” He nodded in the direction of the room they’d just left. “But I do remember that happening. A little differently, but - it always happened.”

“You talk about how Time is a web,” Barry said, speaking almost for the first time since they’d arrived here. He leaned against the wall, shoulder to shoulder with Leonard. “Right? How it’s complicated.”

Leonard turned his head to look briefly at him, before his gaze returned to the wall opposite. Bleak hospital-gray paint was peeling at the corners. “Yeah.”

The other two moments had made sense to Iris. They were things Leonard had wanted to change - just to nudge them at the edges, even if he couldn’t do much. This time, though, it looked like he’d let the event run its course. 

But maybe, she thought, that was the point. That was his choice.

Iris watched quietly, her chest constricting, as Barry slipped his hand into Leonard’s, who didn’t fight him. “I’m proud of you,” she heard him murmur.

Leonard’s face was still set hard. “Why?”

There was a sadness in Barry’s smile that was uncomfortable to look at. “I’ve traveled back to the worst time in my life, too,” he said in a low voice. Len’s eyes darted silently back to Barry’s face. “You didn’t tell your younger self what you wanted to hear. You told him what you needed to hear.”

Something was odd about that sentence. Some of the Legends had talked to Iris about the concept of time shock, in passing. The uneasiness of moving through time and meeting yourself, whether a younger or an older version. The mess of contradictions it could throw up for your identity. What Barry had just said was giving her a feeling like that.

_ You didn’t tell your younger self what you wanted to hear. _

The younger and older Leonard, distanced by decades, were the same. If either of them needed to know that Leonard would make it through this, then they both did. 

When they made it home, Iris was going to have a long philosophical conversation with Len about how he experienced the past.

Leonard was giving Barry a very casual shrug. “I pretty much just told him what I remember hearing. More or less.”

“I doubt that’s all you did.” Barry’s understanding smile was full of his signature kindness. “But going through it all again, without changing things, can’t have been easy either,” he said, as though he knew.

Iris almost winced at the parallel that she hadn’t seen until right then.

Barry met Leonard’s intense gaze. So quietly that Iris almost didn’t hear it, he said, “I love you.”

Iris felt herself swallow. Aware how much they both needed this connection, after the past weeks of conflict, she stayed quiet.

“I love you too,” Leonard murmured. The desolate look in his eyes was just a little lighter. Pushing off the wall, she saw his hand tighten in Barry’s as he reached out for hers. “Let’s get out of here,” he growled, and they were gone.

* * *

They arrived back to a terrifyingly silent Cortex. 

Barry got ready to run - and then there was a calming, reassuring arm on his hand. There was a reason Iris was one of only two people in the world who could slow him down. “It’s okay,” she said. “Lisa and I made a plan. She and the Rogues were gonna get everyone out and somewhere safe, as soon as Manhattan left the city.”

Breathing out slowly, Barry watched a surprising range of feelings playing themselves out across Len’s face. “I got a hero for a baby sister, huh?” He snorted. “Can I tease her mercilessly about that later?”

“Only if I can watch,” Iris said with a delighted grin.

Len cocked his head at her, a thought creasing his eyebrows. “How did you know Manhattan was going to disappear?”

“I figured you were leading him to the Oculus.” Iris’s trusting smile back at Len might have been the sweetest thing Barry had ever seen. “Do you really think I could ever lose faith in you, Leonard?”

And Leonard Snart, infamously cold and unmovable, looked at Iris with so much _ feeling _ that Barry wanted to cry.

Of course, the damn universe didn’t let them have the quiet minute it owed them. “Help me,” croaked a voice.

Adrenaline jump-started him. Barry was back on alert and crackling with lightning in an inhuman fraction of a second. His eyes scanned the room. A human-sized Manhattan was curled up in a dark corner of the Cortex, battered and pathetic, and visibly fading out of reality. Barry might almost have felt sorry for him, except that he still remembered everything Manhattan had done to the man he loved. 

With her arms crossed and her eyes hard, Iris looked ready to tear Manhattan to pieces. Sometimes Barry was surprised by the fury in her, cold enough to rival Len’s. No wonder Len trusted her with his darker secrets. “What happened to you?” she sneered.

“The Oculus,” Manhattan said bleakly. 

“You were there when it blew up,” Barry realised aloud. 

Len took a bold, hesitant step towards his blue adversary. “I’ve lived an eternity in the Oculus - absorbed its power. I was protected when it exploded. He wasn’t.”

Iris was still glaring at Manhattan. “That’s gotta be enough to kill him.”

“He can’t die,” Len murmured. His eyes were focused on the wreck in the corner that used to be Manhattan. Barry wondered what timeline he was seeing. “He’ll just fade out of this reality. Isn’t that right, Osterman?”

Silence.

“Here’s the thing, Osterman,” Len said. “You weren’t all wrong. Changing my timeline that much was a mistake. It was the trigger that started fucking everything up for me.” He took another step closer to the huddled blue figure. “But I’ve been running away from my past, from who I am, for a lot longer than I’ve been a time traveler. And maybe I can stop now. So I guess I owe you. You got me to see what the Oculus has been trying to teach me for too long.”

“And what is that?” Manhattan croaked. For someone who was no longer anything resembling human, he apparently still had a very human sense of curiosity. It made Barry wish, just for a moment, that they could have saved him. 

Len tilted his head. “That this power is mine. No one’s controlling my destiny anymore.” He glanced at Barry, who smiled back at him. “So I gotta write my own story. Make my own choices.”

“How did you destroy the Oculus?” Manhattan asked. He was disappearing faster now. It should have horrified Barry, but at this point he just wanted him _ gone._

Len shrugged. “Made some of those choices. Destabilized the timeline, just enough to give the Oculus a window to destroy itself. Not so much that I’d break Time. Tricky balance.” He glared at the translucent Manhattan._ “Change _ is the only constant in our universe, you big blue freak. You ain’t built to handle changing timelines. But that’s what happens, now that I’m running the show. We choose. You lose.”

Manhattan was barely visible now. Len took another step towards him. “And I _ am _ running the show. By my rules - not yours, or anyone else’s.” He tilted his head. “No strings on me,” he added, under his breath, for what somehow sounded like the last time.

Barry had to try hard not to smile at that. He’d never felt so damn proud of Len.

“You will fracture the universe,” echoed Manhattan’s fading echo of a voice. “You will create Flashpoints and shatter timelines. You could end Time itself.”

Len laughed. _ “Please. _I ain’t that reckless. My job is saving it. Me and the others - sorry, did I mention there’s gonna be more of us? - we ain’t villains. We’re Time Rogues.” He smirked, seeming to notice Barry and Iris out of the corner of his eye. “We know the rules just well enough to break ‘em.”

Barry was fighting a smile. Meanwhile, Iris was just watching Len with a look that said she loved him, and Barry’s heart was beating out a speedster-fast rhythm in his chest at the sight. The three of them spent too much time apart, but there were moments when it felt like they had always belonged together. Barry was going to remember the way Iris was looking at Len, right now. And then, when he was running through the city, when Len was off on the Waverider, when Iris was chasing a story, Barry would be right back there. 

Who needed time travel? This was better. It was real.

“You are a monster,” was the last thing Manhattan said to Len.

Len stilled, just for a second. His eyes met Barry’s. There was something sad but calm there, a quiet acceptance that Barry hadn’t seen in him for most of this mess. A new understanding between them. Then he glanced at Iris, sharing a thoughtful smile with her.

And then Len turned back to the real monster. “Maybe. But good and evil ain’t a thing you are. Being a hero is all about the choices you make. One good thing at a time.” He tilted his head in his partners’ direction. “A couple of wise people told me that. I pay attention.”

Barry covered his mouth, not sure if he was holding back the urge to laugh or cry.

“Did you know I thought it was you?” Len was telling Manhattan, as the former giant fizzled out, his atoms ripping apart into nothing. “I thought you were sending me back to all the worst things I’d ever done.” He huffed a laugh. “Think it was me all along. Making me get up close with who I was… am. So I could learn to break the rules a little.” 

The dark corner was empty now.

Len tilted his head towards Barry and Iris. “I’ll never _ not _ have been a villain,” he admitted quietly. It was a confession, just for the people he loved. “Can’t change the past, but I don’t have to live there. I can do the—” he cleared his throat— “hero thing, too. As long as I can do it my way.”

“Using that word twice in one conversation, Len?” Barry asked, not even trying to keep the teasing out of his voice. 

Len shrugged, shooting him the fondest smirk back. “What can I say? I’m changing the rules.”

“So I hear,” said Iris, with her own little smile. She shot a nervous look back at the empty corner. “Is he gone for good?”

“I think so,” Len said, and breathed out a long, slow breath. 

And then they were all hugging, Iris wrapped around Len and Barry wrapped around both of them, and it was _ over, _ and someone was crying in relief, and Barry couldn’t be sure it wasn’t all of them.  
  


_ If you keep reaching out  
_ _ Then I'll keep coming back _

* * *

The chaos was at least familiar, Iris mused, when the entirety of two superhero teams descended upon the Cortex about an hour later.

Though she’d rarely seen anything as touching as Leonard walking back in from a quiet reunion with Lisa, looking over the full complement of heroes, catching sight of Mick, and striding over to hug him. While Barry squeaked like a distressed mouse - apparently he’d thought Len was going to _ hit _ his old friend - and got patted on the shoulder by an amused Lisa.

There were then a few moments of rapid-fire back-and-forth between them, including _ How are you okay _ and _ Fuck if I know _ and simultaneous half-explanations from three different Legends. Rubbing her head, Iris eventually managed to put together that Mick had appeared back on the Waverider as though he’d never left.

“Technically he didn’t,” said Zari, who was leaning over one of the Cortex computer terminals, possibly trying to hack the STAR Labs version of Gideon. “From what we can work out, Manhattan changed the timeline so the jump ship never got near him.”

“Why’d I remember it all, then?” Mick countered, which resulted in another minute of theoretical debate rising into incoherent yelling.

Iris stepped into the center of the Cortex. “HEY!” 

There was an acceptable silence.

“Thank you,” she sighed. “Zari, would you get Ava Sharpe on the comm link, please? There are some things we should talk about.” 

“Yeah,” Cisco was grumbling. “Like these _ Time Rogues.” _ He tapped a dry-erase pen against his chin, regarding Leonard with a look that was probably intended to make him feel like a small child who should have asked permission before doing a thing. Iris knew it wasn’t going to work. “That’s really the name you’re going with?”

Leonard just grinned. “Yup.”

“You don’t wanna work on that with a professional?”

Sighing again, Iris stepped between them. “Is the name really what we want to focus on right now, guys?”

“You’re not going to get them to do any work until they settle on it,” said a forlorn Barry.

“And as fascinating as that is,” came Ava’s voice over the screen on the wall, “here’s what we _ actually _ need to talk about. Who do you think is going to clean up this mess you’ve made, Snart? The Time Bureau, that’s who. We’ve got rumors of people popping up all over the damn timeline with powers like yours. We need to find them and get them in line, before they start breaking things. And by ‘things,’ I mean Time.”

“Oh,” Leonard said with a shrug, “I thought I’d take responsibility for them.” He tilted his head at Meena, who was standing at the whiteboard beside Cisco. “Wanna give me a hand with that, speedster?”

“Me?” The speedster in question blinked back at him, clearly pretending not to be delighted by this suggestion. Iris was looking forward to welcoming Meena onto Team Flash, when she was ready to admit how much she wanted to join them. “I’m not one of your new—” she waved her hand at the board and made a face— “time travelers.”

Len tilted his head. “Sure, everyone’s got notes on the name... _ Fast Track_. Name yourself, did you?”

Behind him, Cisco choked on his red vine. 

Meena folded her arms. Iris was constantly impressed by how unfazed she was by Leonard in full Captain Cold mode. “Yeah, I named myself.” She muttered, “Wasn’t exactly anyone else around to do it, was there? I’m kinda working on my own here.”

“Hmm. So let’s talk about what we could do about that, shall we?” Len raised his voice. “Cisco,” he said, ignoring how the engineer was being slapped on the back by an overly concerned Barry. “Discuss it in your lab later? You, me and Fast Track here.”

“Send a meeting request to my Outlook calendar,” Cisco deadpanned at him.

Iris rolled her eyes. “That’s a yes, hon,” she translated for Leonard, who grinned at her.

_ “Excuse me,” _ Ava said, her face on the screen now very clearly communicating her current feelings about Team Flash, which apparently weren’t far from how she pretended to feel about the Legends. “Can we get back to the issue at hand? Snart. You really want to take responsibility for these... time travelers?”

“Time Rogues, and yes.” He smirked. “Why, you wanna recruit me, Director?”

“Yes I do,” she said, matching his no-nonsense look with her own, while Iris wondered why there was never a convenient chair she could sink into at moments like these. “Someone’s clearly got to keep _ you _ in line too.”

“Great,” Leonard said. “As long as it’s a part-time gig, and the Legends get me when I’m needed, and I get every second weekend off to come home.” He counted each item off on his fingers.

Ava regarded him with a hard stare for a moment, then nodded. “Agreed.”

Around them, a dozen usually-rowdy superheroes were being surprisingly quiet.

Standing in the door to her office, Caitlin coughed. “Uh, did Leonard just agree to join the Time Bureau?”

“It’ll pretty much be a formality until you’re needed,” Ava said. “When we find them, we’ll pull you in.” 

“I’m sure you’ll keep us all on the straight and narrow, Director.” Leonard tilted his head up towards the ceiling. “I’m famous for following the rules. I’m sure my new team will be, too.”

Iris’s choked-off laugh broke the silence in the Cortex.

“Time Rogues,” Leonard said again, flashing a ridiculously proud grin at her.

Iris watched a smile spread itself across Barry’s face. “Don’t worry, Ava. Their methods probably won’t be conventional, but I’ve got a feeling they’ll find their way. You might even learn to like them.”

Ava was very clearly refusing to smile back. “If you say so,” she said, and signed off.

Mick clapped Leonard on the back as the Legends filtered loudly out of the Cortex. “Good name,” he said. Then, at the door, he turned back to his friend. “Drink later? We’re here till tomorrow. I hear you’re taking even _ more _ shore leave, you lazy shit.”

Tapping one hand against the other in front of his face, Leonard was smiling. “I’m spending a much-needed two weeks with my beloveds, who just helped me save the universe _ again_, yes. And - sure, buddy. You know how to reach me.”

With a nod, Mick walked out, tailed by his captain. 

A moment later, Sara’s voice drifted back in from the corridor. “It’s a giant time ship, Mick. You can’t have just _ forgotten _ where you parked it.”

“Thank God,” Leonard said, when only the three of them were left in the Cortex. He approached Iris, sliding his arm so gently around her waist that she could have melted. He smirked at Barry. “I thought we’d never be alone again.”

Barry chuckled. “Right? I was about to speed them all out of here.” 

He leaned over to kiss Len on the cheek, echoing the move with Iris. It made her feel like she had time traveled back to the day they’d all first realised they were in love, right here in STAR Labs, when Leonard had woken up after they’d been so worried they were going to lose him. It had only been a year ago, but looking back, she couldn’t believe how far they’d come. How happy she was. Reaching out for him, she snaked her own arm around Leonard’s waist. 

“Well then,” Leonard said, eyebrows raised as he looked between the two of them. “What are we going to do with the next two weeks?”

Iris yawned. “I vote for going home.” She reached up to rub the back of her neck. “I can suddenly feel every second of the last few weeks in every muscle. I can’t imagine how you two feel.”

Barry shrugged, pulling her closer. “I could run a mile or two.”

Never willing to be outdone by the Flash, Leonard snapped, “You wanna go a round with the cold gun now? ‘Cause I will.”

“You’ll lose, old man,” Barry shot back, colder than any gun.

“Is that so?” Leonard drawled, and the challenge in his face sent Iris tumbling back in time.

Shaking her head, she took charge, because someone had to, and dragged them both home.

(As they staggered out of the Cortex, Leonard said, “How do the two of you feel about cats?”)

_  
If you leave the light on  
_ _ Then I'll leave the light on _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One to go, baby! Come back soon for the fluffy epilogue that these three babies DESERVE. <3
> 
> Content warning details: The oblique reference to a suicide attempt comes in the fourth scene of the chapter, beginning with “This time, Leonard fell silent as soon as they arrived.” There’s a single reference to Iris realising that Len is in the psychiatric ward, and another to the younger version of Leonard having bandaged wrists. If you’re skipping, you’ll miss Len giving his past self a pep talk about how one day he’ll be a hero - the event described in the final chapter of ‘Stealing Time’. You can safely rejoin the narrative when Len leaves the room, at “Once they were out of the room...”


	15. Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Len has a couple of apologies to make, a team to set up, and a family to be part of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I nailed at least some of the fluffy ending I promised. It, uh, turned out to be 8k words... but I figured you'd all manage somehow. :D
> 
> The joke Iris makes about the Santinis is based on one that ChristineQuizMachine suggested. Mina had the initial (gorgeous) idea of the family tree. Thanks once more to Mina for amazing beta reading (you are a star), and to [Thette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thette/pseuds/Thette) for beta'ing the first half of the series. <3

If Len hadn’t known he was dreaming, he’d have been pissed at finding himself back in that shitty field, with cold damp seeping through the blanket beneath him. He was lying on his back looking up at a dense web of a thousand stars, winking alive, one after another, into a deep Oculus-blue sky.

He sighed, rolling to his right— and blinked at the figure beside him, who looked just like him. “Okay, buddy. I‘m done. No more half-truths and unfinished stories. Who are you?”

The other him smiled. 

(let’s say I’m the part of you that will always be left behind at the Oculus)

There was something wrong with that idea, but it took Len a minute to work out what. “The Oculus is gone.”

(you still don’t understand Time. don’t worry - you will)

Len stared up at the web of Time laid out above him, a mystery that had only begun to reveal its secrets. He had so much more to figure out. 

(do you see the pattern now?)

Len tilted his head.

There was a story in the stars. Being written, as he watched, in fine strokes that looked like his own handwriting. “Guess I had things to learn, huh?” 

(something like that)

Leonard Snart had always known he was a selfish man. So he was surprised by the next question out of his mouth. “And what about the others?”

(as numerous as the stars in the sky)

“...Yeah, thanks, lots of others, got it. I gotta teach them, yeah?” _ Teach them to be better than me, _ he wanted to add, but that didn’t feel quite right anymore.

Oculus-Leonard smiled.

(teach them to find their own pattern)

Well, that was as clear as snow. Len let himself sink a little deeper into the soft ground. “So what do I now?”

The other him pointed a lazy finger. 

(you enjoy the ride)

He let his eyes follow. Far across the field, his partners were sitting amongst the furnishings of the West-Allens’ living room, complete with sofa and a lamp blazing bright in the darkness. A very tiny kitten was running over Barry’s lap. “Her little claws tickle,” Barry said.

Iris giggled. “That’s your fault for not getting a dragon.” She patted the empty couch seat beside her. “Someone’s missing.”

“Oh, I know.” Barry was wrestling the tiny cat, now climbing across his shoulders. “He just has to choose to join us.”

Len rolled his eyes at his other self. “Obvious, much?”

(well. it is all about the choices)

For a brief eternity, it was so tempting to stay there forever, under the great labyrinth of stars. But Barry and Iris were waiting. Making a final effort to drag himself up off the ground, Len turned back to smirk at himself. “Be seeing you.”

(you can count on it)

He didn’t walk towards his lovers. Leonard Snart, who’d never gone anywhere faster than sauntering pace, not even in a dream, _ ran _ to them.

He woke to sunlight stealing in under the window blinds, with familiar long limbs tangled around him. “Len?” came the sleepy murmur, that he could have predicted even without his powers. “You okay?”

Len curled himself tighter into Barry, pulling a lightly protesting Iris towards him on the other side, and allowed himself an indulgent sigh. It felt like the first deep breath he’d taken in weeks. “I’m good,” he whispered. And he was. “Can we stay here forever?”

“Nope,” Iris said, the final popping sound threatening that storm of driven efficiency Len knew so well. “I’ve got to get to the office. And Barry has to go pretend to be a CSI again, and not just a superhero who occasionally visits CCPD when he can be bothered - _ ow.” _ She hissed away from her husband’s poking fingers. “Barry Allen, you are vicious.” She cuddled in closer against Len in protest, kissing his neck. “And I believe _ you _ have an appointment with Caitlin. Weren’t you finally going to talk to Cisco about that meta program, too?” 

Len turned his head so she could reach up to kiss him on the lips - just a tad more sensually than was appropriate at that time of the morning, because she existed to torture him. “Iris, Iris, Iris. How can you kiss me like _ that _ and then make me leave?” He made a face that he hoped expressed his displeasure at being asked to move. “And what’s this ‘finally’ crap? I’ve only been holed up here for a couple of days.”

“Five,” Barry said cheerfully, sliding out of bed. 

Len missed his speedster’s warmth at once. He reached out for the lightning streaking away, whining for him to come back.

At the back of his head, he smothered an old, too-familiar drawl that was protesting about how his enemies had domesticated him. Damn right they had. He wasn’t going to waste a second complaining about it.

Iris stretched out her toes and wiggled them, yawning. “Anyway, you might already be obsolete in your own program. I hear Meena’s been dropping hints about it all over STAR Labs while you’ve been hanging out here.”

“Of course she has,” he said, making a half-hearted attempt to sound cynical. He patted Iris on the butt as she stood up, and got a laugh for his trouble. “Tell Barry not to start eating without me.”

“You’ll be lucky,” she called back from the door.

Grinning, he let his head drop back to the pillow. He could hear Barry asking for a banana, and Iris complaining that she was _ perfectly capable of making _ toast, _ Barry. _

Len had seen and heard a lot during his travels in Time and space. But the sound of his partners bickering over bananas was lovelier music to his ears than he would ever hear anywhere else - even before Barry started singing over the coffeemaker.

* * *

Len didn’t venture down to Ramon’s lab very often. The guy kept the whole of the eighth floor in darkness. Unreliable psychic powers notwithstanding, Len had to admit he was a little older than Cisco and more liable to trip over something in the dark. 

(not that he’d _ ever _ say that out loud)

That was the only reason why Len was feeling some trepidation as he tapped the elevator button for floor eight. Nothing to do with how Ramon still made him a little nervous, or why. Nope.

“Hey, man.” Cisco’s smile bore no hint of resentment towards his old adversary. They’d somehow managed to come a long way in a year. “You’re early.” 

“Yeah. Wanted to ask you something before Fast Track gets here. Gonna leave the details to her.” Len leaned in the doorway, tapping his fingers on the doorpost behind him and watching the engineer at work. 

The engineer was watching him right back. “Anyone ever tell you that’s a little creepy, Snart?”

“What is?” he drawled, cursing his tone as soon as it was out. He didn’t mean to be _ mean. _He was just a defensive bastard. 

(he was working on it)

“That thing where you watch people,” Cisco said to his wrench.

“Sorry.” Better get right to it, then, if he was having an ‘annoying asshole’ day. He hopped up onto a table near the workbench, raising his eyes to the textured ceiling in search of words he wouldn’t find there. “You ever watch Barry run, Cisco?”

Cisco spared him a brief glare and turned back to his work. “Don’t break the $2 million microscope. Yeah, I’ve seen the Flash run. For, like, six years now.”

“But did you ever really _ watch _ him?” He pictured his speedster, not even bothering to bite down on the smile that always came with the image of Barry. “He’s full of this... irrepressible joy, when he’s running. You ever feel that much joy using your powers?”

Cisco put down the wrench, frowning at him. Len really should have had this discussion with Caitlin first, who was actually his friend.

(but maybe he could use a few more of those)

“I think you know the answer to that,” Cisco said quietly.

“Sucks to be us,” Len observed. Cisco raised his eyebrows in agreement. “You ever think about ways to help metas who are struggling with their powers like that? ” Len shrugged, a casual gesture that he didn’t feel. “The ones who _ didn’t _ wake up in STAR Labs surrounded by kind folks ready to help them learn how to be heroes. The ones with terrifying powers they don’t know how to handle. The Meena Dhawans. The Frankie Kanes.” 

(Len, if he hadn’t had Barry and Iris)

Cisco leaned back in his chair, giving Len his full attention now. “You’re talking about the psychic metas. The ones Caitlin’s trying to learn more about.”

Len pictured Meena’s tiny, cold apartment. He thought of Billy, who’d been so terrified to enter STAR Labs, that first time, that Len had had to bribe them to come in. “The psychics, yeah. And all the rest of them who don’t have anywhere to go for help. I wanna start a program for ‘em. And I want your help, and Caitlin’s, if you’re up for it.”

Cisco's stunned look was quickly becoming a delighted smile. “Are you gonna combine it with your Time Rogues thing?”

“Yeah. Got a feeling a lot of those’ll fit right in.” Len slid off the table. “Think about it.”

Cisco nodded, still smiling at Len like he was... proud of him. That was going to take some getting used to.

Len took a couple of steps towards the door. “Meena Dhawan,” he said over his shoulder.

A lollipop had appeared in Cisco’s mouth, as if by metahuman powers. He removed it so he could say, “I’ve met her.”

“She’s a brilliant young engineer. In need of some help. STAR Labs could do worse than, say, sponsoring her training.”

A _ hmm _ from Cisco. “We could use new blood... I’ll think about it.”

“Good.” 

Len’s hand was on the doorframe, ready to swing out of there, but there was something itching at the back of his head, refusing to be ignored. Len didn’t like the idea that he was developing a _ conscience. _ And yet.

He turned around. “Cisco.” Len ignored the slight tremor in his own voice. He had to get all the way through this, or he’d chicken out. “Five years ago, I kidnapped you and your brother. I hurt him... blackmailed you.”

Len’s gaze was stuck just over Cisco’s shoulder, on a pile of broken tech in the corner. He owed Cisco the decency of saying this to his face, more or less. 

“I remember.” A guarded edge had entered Cisco’s voice.

Len took a hesitant step towards him. “You didn’t deserve that. I was a different person then - but that’s no excuse.” He met Cisco’s wide eyes and swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

The wrench Cisco had been white-knuckling landed on the metal workbench with a quiet clatter. Cisco stepped out from behind the bench, his eyes searching Len’s. It was about as uncomfortable as time-jumping back a century, but Len didn’t let himself so much as squirm. “Why are you telling me this now, man?” Cisco sounded genuinely curious. “It’s been a long time.”

Len’s gaze drifted to a gloomy corner of the lab, where the shadows seemed too dark ever to fade. “Learned a few things, recently. Like how the past can come back to bite you. And that it’s never too late to start making up for it.” 

(even if there’s nothing you can do to change it)

Finally, Len made himself look head-on at his friend. Cisco’s smile was back, surprising Len with sudden relief. Cisco clapped him on the shoulder, and left his hand there a moment longer than he needed to. “Thanks,” the kid said simply.

Len just nodded. Feeling weirdly light, he headed off to see Caitlin. He needed a serious talk with her too, about something completely different. Two admissions of _ feelings _ in one day. He could do this - even if it was more unnerving than going up against a speedster.

“Morning, Leonard,” Caitlin said as he entered her office. Her tone let Len know exactly what he was in for.

He hesitated in the doorway to the med lab, feeling his eyes narrow at the powered-up MRI machine. “Hey, doc. Thought today was therapy.”

She was scanning his medical file. “Oh, it will be. First we’re going to have a little chat about how you’re still keeping things from your doctor, and then we’re getting you in an MRI, and _ then _ therapy.” She left him to squirm a couple more seconds, clearly targeted for effect.

Len waited. No way Caitlin could keep that up for long. Sure enough, a moment later there was a hint of apology in her smile. “You piss off your doctor, she gets mean.”

He suppressed a wince. “And what about when you piss off your friend?” he drawled. This past month had been a whirlwind, leaving one hell of a mess in its wake. Len had talked to Barry and Iris, but not to his friends. Not to Caitlin, who had been the first one to care about him, after the Oculus.

She stood up. “Oh, I think your friend will forgive you.” It was a welcome surprise when she took hold of both his hands, raising an eyebrow. “If you promise not to get all self-pitying about it.”

He chuckled, his eyes on their linked hands. “I should have told you when things went wrong with my powers.” At her amused look, he added,_ “Again.” _

Her eyes held sympathy he wasn’t sure he deserved. “You could have gone about this whole thing a lot better, at least at the beginning—” she pulled away, beckoning for him to follow her into the med lab— “but I expect you’ve figured that out.”

“I have,” he agreed. 

Then he paused. That spontaneous admission wasn’t what he’d been planning to talk to her about. He had to bite the bullet - for Barry and Iris’s sake, if not for his own.

“Leonard?” Caitlin turned back around. 

He leaned back against the desk. The wall clock was ticking forward, second by slow second. A time traveler’s perspective could get frustrating. “You know I care about you, don’t you, Caitlin?” 

“Of course. Leonard, I said I understood—” 

He put up a hand. “This whole mess started because I didn’t know how to deal with everything I got going on in my head. And I don’t just mean the shit that came with the Oculus. Past few months, I—” His fidgeting hands went still. He ignored how Caitlin narrowed her eyes, noticing. “I came pretty close to breaking point. If I wanna keep the people I love, I need to make sure that doesn’t keep happening.”

Her nod was half professional counselor and doctor, half supportive friend. Her eyes were twinkling when she asked, “Leonard, are you breaking up with your therapist?”

He shrugged. “Turns out I need to work on more than just time travel powers and related shenanigans. Who knew?”

Caitlin looked thoughtfully up at him, no pity in her face. It was one of the things he liked most about the doc. “I was never really qualified to diagnose you with PTSD, but you clearly have it. I... didn’t want to ask how much of that started before the Oculus.”

He pointed a finger. “And that’s the problem. We‘re friends, Cait.”

“And you need someone who can keep a professional distance,” she finished for him, nodding as though she got it.

(and who won’t scare easy if I tell them some pretty hardcore shit)

He gave a final rap of his fingers against the desk top. “So, doc. Know any good therapists who won’t have me committed when I say I’m a time traveler?” 

She laughed. “I might have one or two people in my contacts.“ She raised a stern finger at the MRI. “Come on. I need to keep a close eye on the state of your brain after this Manhattan business. We’ll still be doing your usual medical checks regularly, by the way.”

“Of course.” He didn’t admit out loud that he’d be glad to have a reason to visit her. 

Leaning over the MRI machine, she paused in her work to smile up at him. “You’re not getting rid of me that easily.” 

A flood of relief washed over him, and he found himself smiling back at her. It had been a weird day, and it was still only lunchtime.

Insistently, she pointed at the hell machine again. “I can’t believe Captain Cold is still afraid of a few magnets.”

“It’s _ loud, _ okay?” he grumbled.

She laughed fondly, patting his shoulder as he made a clumsy attempt to lie down on the fucking thing. “You’ll live.”

“You,” Barry said three hours later, poking his head around the med lab door, “are late for a date.”

Len had never been so pleased to see him.

* * *

Iris hadn’t been to the top floor restaurant in the Emerson Tower before. It was a little out of the price range of a journalist at a media start-up married to a state employee who didn’t spend enough time at work. It wasn’t like Leonard helped, with his mostly-unpaid gig on a shady timeship with vigilantes who never talked about where their funding came from - and at this point, Iris was too nervous to ask. She _ definitely _ didn’t want to know how Leonard was paying for this evening.

She was pondering this over a breathtaking view, sitting with a glass of wine at an outside table on the thirty-second floor. She looked up as a lightning bolt flashed around her and resolved into Barry, depositing a slightly disheveled Leonard by the table. She grinned at them. “Hi, boys.”

“Brought you a present,” Barry said. “He was going to be late, and I couldn’t stand by and let anything so terrible happen. Have a good date.” Shooting finger-guns at Leonard, he was gone, before Iris could say anything.

“He’s in a good mood,” she observed.

Leonard dusted off his leather jacket, eyebrows raised at her as he sat down opposite her at the table. “One day that speed thing is going to get old.”

“But not today.”

He chuckled, a little indulgent sound. “No,” he said, in that tone he reserved for the ridiculous man they both adored.

Iris gestured at the table. “I got us a bottle of Merlot.”

His eyes crinkled in a fond smile of shared memory. He poured himself a glass to match her own, raising it. “What _ shall _ we toast to?” 

She raised her own glass. “To Barry. And to us.”

As their eyes met across their clinking glasses, Iris felt that thrill of excitement that she always did, with Leonard. Barry was safe. He was home. But with Leonard, there was a spark of something challenging, exhilarating. She wouldn’t give it up now for anything, in all of Time and the multiverse - and by now, she’d seen plenty of what that had to offer. It couldn’t compare.

Leonard was swirling the wine around in his glass, his face a little sad, and she couldn’t let that stand. Not when it was their time, just the two of them. On the blue checked tablecloth, she laid her hand over his. “Leonard? What is it?” 

He was struggling to meet her eyes. “Back in… the middle of it all, when I asked you to come on a date with me, I said you’d get a proper apology.”

“Leonard, you don’t need to—” she started.

“I know. I want to, though.” Dewy blue eyes blinked up to meet hers. 

“Okay,” she said softly.

“I’m gonna talk to Barry too. I owe him a different kind of apology. But you…” He turned her hand in his, until her fingers were tightly woven through his own. “Iris, you know you’re everything to me, right?”

She nodded, but didn’t interrupt. 

Leonard was watching her with an intensity that made her breath catch. “You’re this… unwavering presence that I don’t know how I ever lived without. Barry and I could never have made it work without you.”

Iris raised an eyebrow. “I’m aware,” she said drily.

He chuckled, and his hand squeezed hers. “I know Barry and I lead crazy lives and that we— And that _ I _ ask a lot of you.” He rolled self-deprecating eyes. “Especially over the past few weeks.”

“Leonard.” She squeezed his hand back. “You were going through a lot. I think I’d have been pretty pissed off myself, under those circumstances.” And she had been, so many times, when the universe screwed her over, hurt people she loved. She couldn’t blame him for crumbling a little in the face of that.

He shook his head hard. “Doesn’t excuse what I did. I kept things from you. I didn’t trust you when I should have. I—” He swallowed. “I very nearly did some things we could never have come back from. And I’m sorry.”

God, she wanted to reach out and hold him. But, in public as they were, Leonard Snart would have objected to that. So she just met his steady gaze again. “But you didn’t. We figured it out. _ Together._” There was still something dark and self-loathing in his face. She leaned forward, her chin in her hands, refusing to let him look away. “And Leonard, if we forgave you, you get to forgive yourself. No one’s writing our story but us, remember?”

His eyes were wide. She saw a depth of love for her there that was a little overwhelming. And she saw him do it, in an instant - forgive himself. A light was back in his eyes that she hadn’t seen there in too long. She breathed out a long, slow breath, because it really was going to be okay.

He was shaking his head at her. “I don’t deserve you.” 

Iris was getting ready to joke that he was probably right, when the menus arrived. 

“Thanks - just a minute,” Len told the waiter. Picking up a menu, he paused, shaking his head at her. “How do you always know just what to say?”

Iris flung back a hand in mock vanity. “You know me. Perfect.”

“Pretty much,” he said, with the sweetest little smile, just for her. He put down his menu, focusing so hard on her that it would have been uncomfortable, if it weren’t just Leonard. “Iris West-Allen, I love you. You’re never allowed to forget that, okay? And I’m gonna do better at making sure you know it.” He picked up his menu. “Starting with tonight.”

Iris sat back in her chair. She needed a moment to recover from the _ I love you _ dropped almost casually by a man who, when she first got to know him after the Oculus, didn’t know how to _ begin _ to say that. “I love you too,” she managed. She grinned around at the swanky surroundings. “Yeah, this isn’t bad. How exactly did you get us a table here?”

He bounced his eyebrows at her. “The owner owed me a favour.” He seemed happy to ignore her eye roll. “So, what are you having?”

Holding up her menu so she could place it, like a secret, between her and the waiters, Iris whispered, “I can’t pronounce half these dishes.”

Leonard chuckled. “Cute. I know you can—” His eyes widened as he stared his way down the menu. “...Okay.” He looked up in mock horror. “We can handle this. Right?”

“Sure we can. We’re awesome. I’ve hounded crime bosses for a story. You’ve broken out of supermax prisons.”

He shrugged. “Just the one.” Then his face broke in a delighted grin, and he leaned forward across the table. “Tell me about these crime bosses, baby.”

When the waiters eventually braved their way back to the table, Iris was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe and Leonard was practically doubled over. “Are you telling me,” he wheezed, “you told _ Frank Santini _ he was the shitty one from the Godfather movie?”

Iris kicked Len lightly under the table. “He was trying to bribe me to get me off the scent of a story! And actually, I said…” She slipped into a terrifying tone that would have had Len himself running from her, under the right circumstances. “I said, ‘Mr Santini, you seem to think you’re Vito Corleone. The suave, powerful boss - right? But you’re no Vito. You’re a Fredo Corleone, at best. And I’m Iris West-Allen, the journalist who got the scoop on Crisis, and you don’t scare me. So you can take your dirty money, and you can get out of my office before _ you’re _ the one who ends up sleeping with the fishes.’”

It was half truth, half exaggeration, but Iris didn’t care. It had Len laughing like she hadn’t seen him in a long, long time. All she wanted was to see him that happy, with her and Barry, for the rest of their lives.

“So, Leonard,” she said, settling back in her chair once the waiter had left with their orders. “Would you tell me about… how you experience the past?”

And all his walls came down, for her, the woman he loved. With sparkling eyes and a smile he only ever shared with her, he launched into a sincere, exhilarating tale of a trip through Time that she’d never heard from him before.

_  
If you leave the light on  
_ _Then I’ll leave the light on_

* * *

Less than a week later, it was someone else’s turn in the fucking med lab. Meena Dhawan had her eyes narrowed at the MRI machine, tapping her foot. “It’ll be loud,” she objected.

“That’s what he always says,” Frost shot back from the desk, sparing a moment from her work to look up and grin at Len. “You want to be better than _ him, _ don’t you?”

_ “Obviously_, but…”

Len sighed dramatically, but both Frost and Meena ignored him.

Perched on the end of the desk and kicking their feet, regular as clockwork - knock, knock, knock - was Billy Rourke, Time Rogue. “Hey, Meena, _ Frankie Kane _said she’s gonna come find you later,” they said. Their tone was eye-rollingly familiar, vividly reminding Leonard of a tween Lisa when she started to notice that her big brother had a dating life.

Len hadn’t expected people to join the program this early, but word was already spreading in the meta community, and the psychic metas in Caitlin’s research were first in line to sign up. When Len said he wasn’t sure he was ready to bring people on board yet, Caitlin had silently passed him Frankie Kane’s file. Less than a minute later, Len slid it back across the desk and asked if they had a program to sign her up for yet.

Meena hadn’t moved, bracing herself with a tight fist against the side of the machine.

Len turned on his heel to face his young apprentice. “Billy, can you fetch some coffees? Meena’s gonna need a break after this.”

Shrugging, Billy stuck out a hand for money, and smirked when they noticed that the bill Len handed them was more than enough to cover the coffees.

“I'll want the change, kid,” Len griped. 

Billy grinned. “Sure you will, you bleeding heart.” And they popped away in a burst of blue light.

Checking that Frost had her head discreetly buried in paperwork, Len turned back to Meena. He leaned against the wall nearby, trying to give her space. “Hey,” he murmured. “What are you scared of?”

She blinked up at him with red eyes. “Nothing.”

_ “Come on.” _After the mess of shit they’d been through together, they knew each well enough now that she couldn’t hide from him. And thanks to his glimpses of the timeline, Len knew the result would be their lifelong friendship.

Meena deflated against the MRI. “What if they see something in my brain?”

“Like what?” 

She shrugged against the machine. “Something about the Negative Speed Force in me. Something that means I’ll always be...”

She didn't have to say it. Len knew the feeling too well. He bit down on the hints he’d seen of her future, wishing he could offer more than vague reassurances. “Not gonna happen, kid,” he said firmly. “You got the power to make your own choices. Nothing that machine can read in your brain is ever gonna tell you otherwise.” 

Meena was quiet, and Len waited. She was staring down at her black Converse sneakers - a gift from Barry to match the new suit Cisco was making for her. It was all black with a red lightning bolt standing out against it, and she was delighted with it. She went for a run around the city in the suit prototype, for the first time since the chaos with Manhattan. When she returned, her eyes dark with the Negative Speed Force, there was a spring in her step. Len had asked her how she was doing. She’d just shot him a wry grin and said _It’s all about balancing things._ Even if that self-confidence was still patchy, Len was sure she was on an upward trend.

“Hey, Cold?” 

He rolled his eyes, mostly to distract her. “Told you to call me Leonard.”

She snorted. “Yeah, and I’m not gonna.” She glanced at him, suddenly sincere. “Cisco’s offered me a real job here. Did you have something to do with that?”

Quick work, Vibe. “I think he decided all on his own that you could be useful around here. Might have given him a push.”

She had her eyes narrowed at him. “Why are you doing this? All of you?”

He stretched out against the wall, thinking about how to phrase it so she wouldn’t feel patronized. Meena needed to feel like she was in control of her own destiny. He knew the feeling. “A few reasons. Because you were key to defeating Manhattan, and we’re gonna need people like you in the next crisis. Because we can all see you’re brilliant and that you’d be an asset to STAR Labs.” He looked up at her skeptical expression. “And, yes, because we want to help.”

Meena shook her head. “There’s a lot of brilliant people in this city. Why me?”

She needed him to prove himself. Not an easy thing to ask of him. Len wasn’t used to honesty. But people change.

A familiar ripple in the timeline told Len that Barry had arrived in the hallway and was indulging his bad habit of overhearing through an open door. Len mentally sank into his speedster’s calming, anchoring presence, taking a breath. “Once upon a time, there were a few good people who opened their hearts to someone who’d only ever hurt them, and gave him a second chance. And that’s all they wanna give you.” He shrugged. “We won’t be offended if you say no. But maybe you can pay it forward one day.” 

She huffed, just as determined to protect her cynical image as ever. “I’ll think about it,” she muttered, but she was smiling.

His gaze drifted to the ceiling, and he let himself be drawn into the web of the timeline. He saw her years from now, with a dozen young speedsters. Finding them, through her psychic connection to them all, and training them. Working side by side with Len and his Time Rogues, with Barry, with Wally. Dr Meena Dhawan, speedster expert and... physicist, apparently.

(huh)

When he opened his eyes, she was watching him with pursed lips. “What do you see?” she asked softly.

He grinned at her. “You know I can’t tell you that.”

She rolled her eyes. “Asshole.”

“Yup.” He waved a hand at the MRI machine. “C’mon. Let’s find out what’s going on in that enigmatic brain of yours. Maybe we can help with that too.”

That was when Frost, morphing into Caitlin, took over and ushered him out. Slipping away, he nodded his head in greeting at a shock of purple hair pushing past him at the door.

“Hey, Frankie!” he heard Meena say. “We’re still on for coffee later, right?” 

What was it the Oculus had told him?

_ You don’t gotta be the world’s hero. All you have to be is theirs. _

So, an hour later, Len was waiting outside the lab for Meena as she left her appointment. She shot him a thumbs up, dashing away towards the lounge at almost-regular speed.

And as much as a part of him didn’t want to, as much as it wasn’t in his nature, Len called out to her. “You’re doing great, Meena.” 

She turned back to grin at him. “One good thing at a time, huh?”

“That’s what they tell me.”

Heading in the opposite direction, Len turned a corner, and nearly walked right into one Barry Allen. He was in civvies, but with a hint of color in his cheeks that said he had run there. He was leaning against the wall smirking at Len, as though Len was damn well rubbing off on him. But then, Barry had always been a smug bastard when it came to things like this.

“Thought you might like a lift home,” Barry said innocently. 

Len raised a targeted eyebrow at him. “Nice of you to think of me.”

“Yeah,” Barry said, still smirking.

Gesturing vaguely at him, Len said, “If this about what you overheard when you were spying on me behind the door of the med lab, you can zip it.”

If it were possible for Barry to grin any wider, he would have. “I don’t know what you mean. Hey, how’s the program for meta kids going?”

“Everyone seems to think it’s a great idea.” Len aimed his frostiest glare at Barry. “Is this the part where you call me a hero?”

Barry’s face was suddenly serious, and Len wasn’t sure if he was being mocked or not. Till Barry said, “Only you can decide how you self-define, and I respect your choices.” Which was Len’s answer to that question.

Len blinked at the ceiling, where he spent a lot of time staring, when it came to Barry. 

And then he looked back at his speedster, his anchor. Barry’s smirk had transformed into a fond smile, warm and light and full of love - like him.

Not long ago, Len had realised something about the times he ended up in conflict with Barry, about the places where they scraped against each other’s sharp, hurt edges. He had never known how to be loved by this intense, _ good _ man, who saw light in him where Len only saw darkness. But, as he looked at Barry now, he could see his new willingness to let Len be everything he was, and he knew they’d learn to make it work. 

And then there were speedster-warm arms around him, and a _ let’s go home _ whispered in his ear, low and smooth, and Len could have melted like the hot chocolate he had suddenly realised he needed to share with both his lovers. Right fucking _ now. _

So it was handy, really, that one of them was a speedster.

* * *

All day, Barry and Iris had been quietly putting the finishing touches on a project that the three of them had been working on for the past week. That afternoon Iris had been to pick it up, and now it was waiting, wrapped in brown paper - a surprise for Len.

Barry came through the door first, feeling himself light up at his wife’s sparkling eyes. “Len’s taking the trashcans out. Did you get it?” he whispered.

Iris pointed at the package. “Would I let you down?”

In a flash of lightning, Barry was at the couch, leaning over the back of it to kiss her. “Never.” He closed his eyes and sank into the kiss, just enjoying the way that he still felt when he was with the woman who’d been his wife for three years. His heart was beating hard in his chest, just like when he was a teenager who thought Iris would never be his, and he laughed against her.

Iris pulled away, looking cross-eyed at him. “What?”

“Nothing, really.” Smiling, he left his hand on her cheek a little longer. “Just remembering something Len said.”

“What did I say?” The man himself paused at the door, smirking a little. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

“Hardly.” He opened his arms to Len, who slipped in between the two of them on the couch with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Barry laid his head on Len’s shoulder. “Remember when you said that if you had to do everything over from the beginning, if it meant you’d be with us in the end, you’d do it?” He looked across at Iris. “Sometimes I feel like that too.”

“Oh really?” Iris arched an eyebrow over a knowing little smile. “So you’d _ once again _ put up with me taking, like, a decade longer than you to figure out we were in love, would you, babe?”

Barry hoped she read his eye roll as fond. “Yes. Yes I would.”

“Mm-hmm,” she shot back.

Beside him, Len seemed to be taking the West-Allens’ mutual teasing in stride, his face settling into a thoughtful look. When Barry raised an eyebrow at him, Len shrugged. “I meant it, you know. If there’s one thing the last few weeks have taught me, it’s that sometimes the past gets you where you need to go.” He looked from Barry to Iris and back again. “And that’s what matters, in the end.”

Barry laid a hand on the wrapped package on the coffee table. “Speaking of which…” 

Len pointed a shrewd finger. “Don’t think I hadn’t noticed that.”

“Of course you had,” Iris said flatly.

Barry chuckled. “Len, would you do the honors?”

With eyes narrowing at each of them in turn, Len leaned over and ripped the brown paper off the package.

And sat back.

“Wow,” he said.

“Wow, indeed,” Iris echoed.

“Had no idea it would be that... huge.”

Barry chuckled. “It is _ three _ people’s family trees. The artist made the writing pretty tiny, but…”

He stopped talking, captivated by his lover’s expression. Len’s left hand was ghosting across the names at the center of the tree. _ Barry Allen. Iris West-Allen. Leonard Snart. _ All linked with two bold lines… indicating marriage.

Barry squeezed Len’s right hand, which had suddenly found its way to his knee. Barry would never admit it, but he didn’t mind the moments when Len seemed a little lost, a little overwhelmed. It was when he knew how much Len needed him and Iris. The old Captain Cold could never have shown them this side of himself.

“Can we hang it?” Len asked. His voice was a little rough.

“Want me to…?” At Len’s nod, Barry flashed the family tree up to its prepared spot, on a new nail right in the middle of the living room wall. 

An arm fell silently across his shoulders.

Another, smaller arm snaked around his waist.

While Len stared at the names, Iris crowded in closer to examine them. They’d managed to capture a complex family history, for all three of them. The name that caught Barry’s eye first was _ Joe West, _ above a line leading down both to Iris’s name, and - on a separate, dotted line - to Barry’s. Iris’s mother’s name was there, too, but only on her side. 

“For foster-father,” Barry explained, when Len traced Joe’s dotted line down to Barry’s. Len nodded, wide-eyed.

When Barry’s eyes found _ Nora Allen _ and _ Henry Allen, _he felt that old familiar pang of sadness mixed with gratitude that he would always associate with his parents. He smiled as Iris’s arm tightened around his waist. “It’s good,” he said, nodding slowly.

Len’s hand returned to the bold lines that connected all three of their names. “It’s not legal,” he said softly. Reverently.

Barry shook his head. They’d talked about that, when they were putting down the first designs for this on paper. About how society was always going to be behind them, and it wasn’t likely to be legal for a long time, if ever. They’d offered Len a symbolic ceremony - but he’d just smiled and said _ I’m not the type. _

This was all they needed.

Iris poked Len. “Are you breathing, Leonard?”

Sucking in a breath, Len chuckled. He reached up a hand to his eyes, not even trying to cover up the motion. “Yeah.”

Barry watched, speedster-quick heart pounding in his chest, as Len’s gaze drifted away from the names at the center, to his own kin. _ Lisa Snart. Alicia Alemu Snart. _ And one that had been a bit of a surprise to Barry, when Len had included it in the first designs - _ Lewis Snart. _“I ran from my past for too long,” Len said, so quietly that Barry had to strain to hear him. “But if there’s one thing this whole mess with Manhattan has shown me… I figure you can only move forward if you know where you come from. If the past is part of you… but doesn’t control you.”

Barry nodded. Not so long ago, he had reached the same understanding himself. Sometimes it came painfully slowly, but that was okay.

There was silence for a moment, while Barry and Iris waited quietly as Len got himself together. This was a big moment for all of them, but Barry hadn’t imagined it would hit Len this hard. _ Family, _ Barry thought. _ It doesn’t always look the way you expect. _ He really should have learned that by now, but there was always another reminder.

Abruptly, Len turned around, leaning on the wall next to the family tree. For a moment, the sheer, delighted Captain Cold-ness of him almost made Barry laugh out loud. “So, yeah,” Len said, seamlessly picking up the thread of their earlier conversation. “You’re damn right that if I had to do all the shit in my past again, I would, if it led me to you two.” He glanced towards the hallway, and the box room they mainly used for storage. “Which is why…”

And he sprinted away.

“...Had he finished that sentence?” Iris asked, while Barry giggled into her shoulder, and she patted him on the back.

Len was back a moment later with a cardboard box. He deposited it on the living room table, rummaging around in it. “Just one sec— aha!”

He pulled out a silver photo frame, tilting his head at Iris, who nodded. Barry watched him curiously, not wanting to ask any questions in case he freaked his lover out on the still-delicate subject of his past. But Len had a determined look on his face, as he went to the side table where they kept the photo of a ten-year-old Barry with his parents, and another of Joe with his arms around an older Barry and Iris. Repositioning the pictures to make space, Len set down his own photo frame. He beckoned Barry and Iris over.

Len’s silver frame, hinged in the middle, held two photos. One was an old Polaroid in the faded brown and orange hues of 1970s photos. It was of a child Barry assumed to be a very young Len, with a head full of dark curls and a yellow truck tight in his fist. Crouching beside him was— “My mother,” Len murmured to Iris. In an uncanny rush, Barry recalled meeting a version of Alicia Snart in the Speed Force.

On the other side of the frame was a Len who was still young, maybe in his late teens, but now recognizable as himself. He had his hand on the shoulder of a little girl who was standing on a pink scooter and _ beaming. _

Len ran his hand gently over each of the photos, in turn. “I’d almost forgotten I had these. Didn’t want to look at my mother’s face for— oh, a long time,” he said, a forced-casual note in his voice. “Then I was cleaning out the storage unit earlier this week, and I found them at the back of a dusty box.” 

Iris’s voice broke into the silence that followed. “Are you curious?” 

“About my mother?” Len replied, a little distantly. “Yes. Am I going to try and find her? No.”

They stood there looking at the photos, arms wrapped around each other, for just a little longer. Barry’s eyes scanned between Alicia Snart, Joe West and the Allens. It was, he thought with a sigh, a nice little memorial to the people who’d helped make them all who they were. For better and for worse.

Len sat back down on the couch, pulling Iris with him. Barry followed, plumping for a bit more space in the armchair. “Thank god you’ve cleaned out that storage locker,” Iris said.

Len turned, reaching out a hand to stroke her cheek, and Barry smiled. He was almost used to it, now, the way he felt a little awed whenever he watched them together. “I got more things to put around the apartment,” Len said. “...If you’re okay with it?”

Barry dropped his head into his hands. Iris just laughed and said, “We’ve only been asking you to take up more space around here for nearly a year, hon.” Barry recovered just in time to see Iris running her hand over Len’s head, and nodding at the new framed document on the wall. “Welcome to the family,” she said softly.

“Family,” Len repeated, still clearly a little dazed by the idea. He gave Barry an awestruck smile.

“That.” Barry quirked a half-smile back at him, sinking into the chair. This was nice. Maybe he could just stay here forever, with the two people he loved more than anything else in the multiverse.

Iris pulled up her legs, curling against Len. “I don’t know why you ever needed a storage unit anyway. You live between here and the Waverider. That’s gotta be enough space for all your crap.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “I was _ literally _ an international jewel thief, Iris.”

Barry put his head back in his hands. “If you tell me the Kahndaq Dynasty diamond is in a box in our spare room, I will speed you to CCPD and make you hand it over.”

“Sure you will, Scarlet,” Len drawled. And winked at him.

Reaching out a long leg, Barry kicked him. 

Then he remembered something, and jumped up. “Hot chocolate!” he called out - from the kitchen.

Barry heard Len laugh and say, “Well, he did promise.” And, raising his voice, “Scarlet, you do know to make mine with—”

“Yes, Len.” He shook his head, out where his ridiculous partners couldn’t see him. He was back soon enough, apologizing for making them wait for the very human cooking speed of the stove.

When they were all sipping from steaming mugs, Barry raised a hand. “Before this nice moment passes and you both start making fun of me for my choice of this evening’s TV show, can I say something?”

Len raised his head, narrowing his eyes at Iris. “He’s about to be _irritatingly_ sincere, isn’t he?”

She grinned. “It's his other superpower.”

Barry glared at them both. “I actually have something to say, assholes.”

Len reached over to pat him on the knee. “Sorry, Barry. Go ahead.”

Barry waited a minute for them both to settle. This was important, and he was only going to say it once. “I learned a few things from the last few weeks, too.” Len’s eyes crinkled with sudden worry - and Barry wasn’t going to allow that. Dropping his voice, he murmured, “Incoming,” and reached out across the coffee table for Len’s hand.

Wide-eyed, Len put down his hot chocolate, took Barry’s hand and didn’t interrupt. 

“I don’t ever want to come that close to losing you again,” Barry said quietly. Len nodded. The events of the evening apparently had him struggling for words, so Barry carried on. “Everything about you matters to me, Len. The same way everything about my life does to you.”

Len raised a wry eyebrow at Iris. “He means how I don’t complain that he works for the cops,” he quipped. 

Barry rolled his eyes. He could let Len fall back on his stupid sense of humor if it helped him deal with Barry’s _ sincerity. _“Yes, and thank you for that.” He squeezed Len’s hand, encouraging his attention back. “Your past matters, and you’ve got to find your own way to live with it - but we’re your future.” 

“You’re really good at these pep talks. It’s like you’ve had practice,” Leonard said, while Iris snorted into her mug and Barry rolled his eyes. But there was no trace of a smirk in the slightly overwhelmed smile Len gave Barry. Only love.

Grinning back, Barry said, “See? I’m even content to accept that you both mock me mercilessly.”

But Len’s eyes were briefly serious again as he turned his head in the direction of the family tree. “Can’t change the future unless you know how it fits into the rest of your story,” he mused.

“Nope,” Iris said, and reached up to kiss him.

“So,” Barry said, settling back into the too-comfortable chair again, “What are we doing for the rest of the night?”

Len checked his substantial watch, probably just for effect. The guy had always known what time it was, to the minute, even before the Oculus. “It’s 10.30 PM. We’re gonna be asleep before we can get into anything.”

Iris made a dismissive noise. “It’s Friday!”

“And at 8.06 tomorrow I’m gonna be woken by a call from Ava, with news.”

Barry puffed out an impressed sigh at Len. “I honestly don’t know how you live like that, man.”

He got a head tilt and a warm smile back. “It’s an adventure.”

Iris slapped the arm of the sofa. “Well, I vote for Star Trek.”

Len snorted and leaned in to kiss her, only pulling away to ask, “How? How do you vote for Star Trek?”

“She’s preempting you,” Barry said, yawning. “That way she can ask for a romantic comedy tomorrow.”

Iris patted Barry on the shoulder. “No, babe, that’ll be you.” She yawned. “I didn’t say _ which _ Star Trek, though.” 

“Oh no. There will be no Voyager in this apartment,” Len grumbled. “Especially now that it’s my apartment too.” 

Iris patted his knee a couple of times. “Oh, yeah. We should add you to the lease...” 

“Still dead, Iris,” Len said, chuckling.

“Riiiight,” she murmured, her voice getting increasingly sleepy. “Society’s not... very good about rights for the dead yet... is it...”

Barry locked eyes with Len across a now-definitely-sleeping Iris. “God, I love her,” he murmured.

“Me too,” Len agreed. But it was Barry he was smiling at - a smile that said he couldn’t believe he was lucky enough to have either of them.

Barry knew the feeling.

“We should take her to bed,” Barry whispered.

“Right.”

They didn’t.

  
_And I am finding out_  
_There's just no other way  
_ _That I'm still dancing at the end of the day_

* * *

The next morning, when Len was woken by his Waverider communicator at exactly 8.06, they were still curled around each other on the couch. All three of them.

"Shh," Len hissed, fumbling for the volume button on the device. "There's people sleeping here, Director."

He blinked sleepy eyes at Ava's face, filling the handheld screen. "Sorry - I assumed you'd be on the Waverider," she said, keeping her voice low. "We've found another of your Time Rogues, Snart. Where are you?"

Warm arms tightened around him, just a little - but if he was awake, Barry didn't say anything. On his other side, Iris didn't stir, but Len could feel the rise and fall of her chest against him. He let his head fall against her shoulder, listening to her deep, even breathing, tempting him back towards sleep.

He smiled. "I'm home," he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! A *huge* thank you to everyone who's stuck with this series through two multichapters and two one-shots. I'm not closing the series, but that's probably it for now, unless another one-shot idea hits me. 
> 
> Meanwhile, I'm working on a coldwest in a different 'verse, so hope to see you soon with that!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed, I'd love a comment.
> 
> I'll be warning every chapter for triggering content and smut so people can skip tricky parts - but if you spot anything you'd like me to warn for in future chapters, just comment and I will do.
> 
> Find me on tumblr [here](https://sophiainspace.tumblr.com/).


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